Loss

(Two friends walk along the Promenade till they reach the tetrapods at the tip of Nariman Point. It's a quiet evening and the sun shines feebly behind them. The salty air is bordered on one side with the wind and on the other side with the sales pitches of the kulfi and peanut sellers, interrupted intermittently by the slow sound of waves lapping up the shore.)
Di: (scrambling on to the nearest pod) This is it, El. Welcome to the edge of our city.

Ello: (sits on the stairs) Seems strange, doesn't it - this sudden territorial finality, like there's nothing I can touch and feel beyond this point.

Di: It is a little surreal, to see the roads come to an end. You think this unsettling feeling has something to do with why people feel seasick?

Ello: I suppose so.. (stretches her arms). I don't know, I'm not very sure. But to stand here and know that you've reached a point in this huge city is almost like standing at the edge of a cliff, and seeing land turn into wind.

Di: The end of land, the end of physical motion. Which is why we find it so odd; to be living in this maniac city and to be coming to a stop.

Ello: Doesn't happen too often, does it?

Di: (scales another tetrapod successfully) Not at all, I think. We're like particles rushing in continuum .. stopping, opposing, resisting doesn't happen. It's a very preoccupied force.

Ello: (breaks into a light smile) Oh yes, Dadar, Kurla and VT are sparkling testimonials to that.

(A little boy in rags walks by, with an ice-lolly in his mouth.)

Di: They say it's all in the mind. I don't entirely agree with that.

Ello: (as if distracted) Hmm.. you don't?

Di: No. I mean, look at us here. Physically speaking there's no further we can go. But mentally, we could cross these seas in a second. And yet we're so stilled. And it's ..
(stares at the horizon, thoughts trailing off with the breeze)

Ello: (after a while) It's like death.

Di: This?

Ello: Isn't it? An apparent end, of sorts. Like these haphazard tetrapods seem to pause my city here, seem to tell me there's no further I can go. But this could also be a beginning. For something to begin, something has to end. Maybe I have to end, before I can become a part of a new beginning.

Di: (Reaches out with her legs on to her third tetrapod) What about memories? What about energy? What about the personal magic somebody has in them, which makes them what they are?

Ello: It's like a waterfall. It's a fluid journey; we flow. Memories, energy, the personal magic you talk about - they all come to an end with you. That's the only way you can begin again. And because we spend so much time and effort creating and constantly taking care of these things, it becomes difficult to draw a line.

Di: (plays with her hair in her fingers) I think realising that you need to let go, realising that you've reached a corner is important, or else you keep searching in a circle.

Ello: This could be true for anything. I think Pygmalion couldn't realise this when he created Galatea, and we don't realise it when we lose someone we're very close to.

Di: Whether it's a physical loss, or the loss of a person in a person, or a loss of ideals.

Ello: (after a while) True.

(The sun has left. The darkness plays with the light being reflected on the ripples, as if tempting it out of the waters. The sounds of cars and bikes take over with vengeance. The peanut seller and the kulfi man have long left. Ello and Di finally get up and leave, breaking out of that inertia which always envelops you when you're sitting next to the sea.)