My rickshaw came to a halt on a mound; the rain had intensified doubly and I briefly considered waiting for a bit. I'd paid a hundred rupees to get here, it would be stupid if I sat inside waiting for the rain to subside I thought to myself. I was quite wet in any case from the drift getting in through the sides of the rickshaw. I stepped out of the rickshaw. The view in front of me hit me like the final movement of the crashing drums in Carl Orff's O Fortuna.

Flat empty beach stretched for kilometers on both sides of me. A deserted lighthouse stood on my right. Skeletal remains of the compound wall barely stood upright around the place. The sky was thick and ashen. My view faded into the torrential downpour in the distance and a raging wind blasted across the utterly desolate beach. The sea churned as if a thousand rivers had emptied into it. And water fell out of the sky in extreme malice and spite.

I walked up to the edge of the water and looked around me. I was the single living being in this vast flat space in the middle of a raging storm. The wind made it difficult to stand straight and the rain stung my skin; water got into my eyes. I stood shivering violently in the cold; in awe and in fear. I looked searchingly to the ends of the beach hoping to spot someone, someone else who could see what I was seeing, someone else who would, like me, remember this day at the beach forever. There was no one of course and somehow that completed the experience. It was mine to keep, in the purest form. Unmixed by any other opinion. 

It's been over a month now since I visited Somnath and some of the Kathiawar Peninsula. And even though I don't have a camera that documented every moment of my solo trip, it'll be difficult forgetting any of it.

I distinctly remember preferring mountains to beaches when I was younger. Of course, that became invalid around 4 years back when I went to Leh. But over the last couple of years all my trips have been to beaches and I''ve enjoyed each one of them thoroughly. In 24 hours I will be at the place below and I hope it'll be the best yet!

                                                           Photo Credits: Milam Saxena