Beginning at Willingdon our ship soon entered the blue-black see

Bidding adieu to the white foams chasing its aft and the lee

Led by Dolphins on either flank

Balmy breeze became a companion;

After a while flying fishes like silver sheets

Rising from the water, dazzling

In the dying rays of the setting sun

A strange sight, puzzling;

Butterflyfish is the National Animal of Lakshadweep.

Moving through the vast blue

Boats and steamers chugging along

We never felt bored but fell asleep

Lulled by the air and its soothing song

It became an eerie world in the dead of the night

As the ship cruised alone

Solitary moon and thousand stars overhead.

Lakshadweep archipelago with 36 islands, ten uninhabited

Has the pounded coral reef at its base

Softer than sand older than the dead

Yet they recreative with Kabaratti as the capital head.

One of the rare sites on earth like Maldives and Seychelles

Lakshadweep is famous for the riot of colours;

Here it is turquoise there aquamarine, go further, it is sapphire

Then amethyst, almost touching the blue of the sky

Soon sea-green and somewhere yellowish

Grand feasts for the eyes.

  Somewhere transparent somewhere opaque

According to the depth,

The water invites the visitors to choose

Between swimming kayaking or snorkeling; play with the sea

Some prefer scuba diving in the company

Of the green or hawksbill turtles

Safest is sitting in glass boats viewing the clear lagoon;

The wondrous marine wealth

Consisting of coral reefs and polyps colourful

Multicoloured fishes with fins and gills

Slippery lichens and anemones

Sea cucumbers, emperor angelfishes

With white circles on round black bodies

Besides Innumerable insects

And other living and non-living things;

A wonderful biodiversity one notices

Beyond his day-to-day experiences.

On the way to Suhail and Tinnakara islands

One finds human activities inimical to Nature;

Tetra pods cordoning the islands restrict nesting and hatching

By the sea turtles causing their gradual decline;

Islands are used for man’s useless whims

Maiming their beauties, crippling the biodiversities.

Pitti island with choppy waves and rugged rocky surface

Is a haven for different types of terns

 Lesser noddy and other birds.

The islands here are made of the body

Of the coral reefs formed by corals;

Their body secretions, skeletal remains

And chemical compositions create lagoons

Men destroy what Nature created over their dead bodies, soon.

The islands were under the sway of different kings and dynasties;

Those who signed their historic presence before us, the important visitors

Were Ptolemy, Al Biruni, Ibn Batuta and others

Visiting the islands at different times in different centuries.

 

~ Aju Mukhopadhyay

Puducherry, India