28th December – Touching the High Seas

Our yatra reached Kanyakumari in the early hours of the 28th. All of us were informed through the PA system to wear our yatri t-shirts. So, 400 yatris in blue and white were ready to march to Vivekanand Rock Memorial. I must say the crowd management team did a great job in directing 400 yatris for a two hour walk. I was glad that we were walking to the tip of India. It took us about an hour to reach Sannathi Street where we joined a really long queue to catch a ferry to the memorial. Everything was written in Tamil, all over the streets, on the shops and trust me on people’s faces too. So difficult to converse with them.

Due to the large number of yatris, the queue got mixed up and one queue broke into two. In frustration the guard blurted out something which didn’t make sense at all. He looked at me and said, “You Delhi people” Such anti-north Indian sentiment! Surely he could beat Raj Thackeray hands down! I was going to strike back something in defence but before I could, he was taken away by another guard who I guess sensed trouble.

We kept on moving till we finally reached the edge of the sea. Fishermen had parked their colourful boats near the sea shore. Wind was blowing over us as I tried to stand steady and take a few photographs. The sky was blue and the sea matched the colour brilliantly. I can’t even call it a sea because it was a mixture of Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. Breathtakingly beautiful and strikingly calm. We jumped into the ferry to reach the Vivekanand Rock Memorial. As the ferry made its way, the 40 year old structure came into sight. Swami Vivekanand, in the end of 1892, had meditated on the same rock on which the memorial has been built. To commemorate the great philosopher, who is said to have attained enlightenment on the rock.

The memorial was majestic. There is a temple devoted to Swami Vivekanand and a temple devoted to Shripad Parai. The rock is believed to have been blessed with the touch of Goddess Devi Kumari (Kanyakumari)’s feet. From the memorial you could see the three colours of the sea merging with each other. The atmosphere at the rock memorial was truly soul touching. I don’t know whether it was because of the meeting of three seas or the bright blue sky or just the wind blowing in my ears.