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"And once in a while, with a friend, I would walk on the beach towards that Dolphin's Nose southwards for a couple of miles. And land up right on the banks of the narrow creek into which the sea flooded inwards to the port. It is through this creek that the rivulet "Narava Gedda" joined her spouse, the Bay of Bengal."
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I was talking about our escapades on the Vizagh beach in 1958.
After night meals I used to take a 5-minute walk down our Maharanipet home to that fond beach.
And then watch the heavily barricaded "Naval Battery" Compound. Once in a while they used to switch on their floodlights with their parabolic reflectors casting a brilliant parallel beam of white light right on the sea to a mile or more, catching a ship anchored there waiting for days for a vacant berth at the port ahead.
Legend had it that the sea there saw 'action' during the Second World War:
...Later, Japan sent an aircraft-carrier and two of its fighter planes around 8 AM on April 6th. Sensing danger, the sirens blew and the people of the town who were already given a drill in case of eventualities ran for shelter. The planes after a few rounds of scouting disappeared, Vizaghites were relieved.
But the planes returned back again around 1 AM, and this time they came in two plus three attack formation and started pounding the coast. But the moment they tried to enter the port area, the American ships stationed there opened up their famous `Bofors’ anti-aircraft guns in staccato. The retaliatory fire, combined with the natural protection of the hills on all three sides, did not allow the planes to have a peep at the inner harbor, and had to abort their mission...
On a sunny winter morning my friend and I would walk down to the beach and head northwards away from the Dolphin's Nose.
A mile or so later we would reach the "Scandal Point" (never could decipher what was so scandalous about it).
That Point was marked by a rock on which was perched a concrete column about 6 feet tall.
And at the base of that column there was just enough space for seating a scandalous couple.
Away from the beach facing it was the landmark "Ramakrishna Mission Temple" with its renowned 'Aratis' at sundown. The road ended a few hundred meters then on.
Walking further on the beach northwards there were no buildings then across the beach...unlike now. It was a stack of clayish dunes all the way up, to our Andhra University Buildings.
Walking a couple of miles further north on the beach we would reach a bend in the sea where it took a circular turn deep into the land, forming what was famously called: "Lawson's Bay" (Lawson who?)
That was a bay within the Bay of Bengal.
And the sea there was always like a vast placid swimming pool. Great for bathers and swimmers.
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Resting for half an hour on the beach there and watching the Lawson's Bay, we dared not walk further north.
Reason was that it ended in a deep jungle going up a tall uninhabited hill (now called Kailasa Giri) reputed to be abode of tigers once upon a time.
So we crossed away from the beach into the land and reached the "Shanti Ashramam"...a few buildings nestling among groves of a casuarina ('singing' trees).
Walking further up by the footpath we found bushes of "screw pine" (మొగలి)
Further ahead were long barracks of Vizagh dhobis (including our own Manikyam's).
Walking further on we saw a circular patch of gently sloping hardened sand at the center of which was a pole with a red flag fluttering in the sea breeze.
That was a mystery to us then...now I know it as a golf course hole into which lucky golfers putted their balls once in a blue moon.
And finally we landed up in a pucca road in what was called: "Waltair Uplands"
All those are gone now...("now" means 1997 when I visited Vizagh last :)
Kailasa Giri is a tourist place with a stair case and a cable car to boot.
And those golf courses and dhobi ghats and screw pines gave way to a booming posh township called:
MVP Colony (Muvvala Vani Palem)
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Walking up the Waltair Uplands road we got to the Out-Gate of our Andhra University.
And right in front of it was a hillock with a footpath leading to the "Kirlampudi Hostel" famous abode of Frustrated Research Scholars (FRS).
From there the roaring Bay of Bengal once again surfaced into our view.
At the Out-Gate we take the "City Bus No 10" (charmingly called 'Sputnik' for the roundabout route it took).
Had we taken any other city bus like #1 or #2 we would go straight by the Main Road to the Harbor-end of Vizagh...the other bus terminus called "Old Post Office".
And we had to get down at the other end of the KGH Hospital Hillock and walk up it (tiresome).
So Bus No 10 was invented to take a left turn ahead of the University, go downhill all the way to the Ramakrishna Mission Temple, take a U-turn around it, and go up again....reaching the Maharanipet Junction (where our home was for 2 years).
And then we shifted to the nearby Krishna Nagar where I had a room on top of a hillock facing the Bay of Bengal.
And a chair and table pushed against a window where I could sit and watch the roaring sea day and night...and dream...and read seaside stories like in Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea", and Conrad's "Victory" (our prescribed 'novel' in Part I English).
No wonder I didn't get to study the hated Math and Chemistry tomes...missing thereby coveted medals and prizes (despite topping in English...which didn't count).
Ah! Well! I did get to blog like the Devil!
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To be continued
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