This is actually a post-dated entry..a sort of journal entry I wrote last December when I'd just finished my scuba diving course...seeing as it's been one of the biggest highlights of my life in Lakshadweep so far, this blog would be incomplete without mention of it..


26th December 2006
Kavaratti Island, Lakshadweep


Today I am finally a certified PADI Open Water Scuba Diver. At the end of these 13 days, I leave the Dolphin Dive center, Kavaratti Island with a sense of satisfaction and warmth not to mention memories to last me for a long time to come..I have received training from one of the most professional dive masters in the country in one of the worlds most beautiful places. Since my training was sponsored by WII, the course didn’t cost me a cent but for the experiences I have had over the past two weeks, I would have gladly paid a fortune..I have made new friends and shared fascinating experiences on both land and underwater. I will especially never forget Chandru Uncle from the visiting ARSI Ham radio team that had come to set up a station in the Lakshadweep for the very first time...Such a wonderful old gentleman.. I’ll never forget all our lunchtime conversations under the shack at the Dive center. He told me once that normal people are prisoners of their own minds. They set their own boundaries and are forever confined by it. It’s the crazy people who really live life, grabbing it by the throat with their spirit and sense of adventure. I guess in that sense Chandru Uncle is self-admittedly as crazy as it gets..The things hes done..He's 70 years old but he’s driven his car from Bangalore to Malaysia, broken a record for operating the highest amateur radio station at 17800 feet, gone mountaineering, scuba diving, sailing ,wind surfing, visited more than 50 countries reaching as far as the Arctic Circle, and he’s still raring to go!..next stop.Manasarowar, Tibet and Beijing to watch the next Olympics..hes driving down of course..He wouldn’t have it any other way..oh and in the meantime, he's getting his pilot’s licence so he can fly down next year to get his Scuba diving certificate! He is definitely a treasure trove of knowledge, an intrepid traveler, inspirer.. but mostly..he’s just a grand old timer with a killer sense of humour..Today when we were discussing his many road trips, I asked him what he drives..and his instant reply was 'mostly himself crazy' . That’s Chandru Uncle in a nutshell..My dive instructor Shaukat Ali had a brainwave when he asked him to ‘present’ my course certificate to me. I considered it a blessing that I was truly fortunate to receive.

As for the diving itself, most people never forget their first dive and I’m no different. For my first dive at ‘The Wall of Wonder’ I did something I’ve always wanted to do (but I never imagined I’d do underwater). I stepped off a cliff and felt nothing beneath me..

Enveloped by the blue coolness of the ocean..watching the shimmering sunlit waves from beneath the surface..it was so surreal..Behind me was a wall exploding in a vibrancy of colour and form..with corals, sea fans and fishes of every imaginable shape and size..even an occasional green turtle swimming by..And beneath me, the seemingly bottomless depths disappearing in a haze of deep purple..Suffice to say..It took my breath away..I could hear Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ playing in my head…Without a doubt the dive was an adrenaline rush but it was also so much more..It felt like what I can best describe as a glimpse of “the other side”, clichéd as it may seem..but it seemed like like I had entered into an almost parallel dimension for the first time, one that not too many people have seen and the experience was in a sense transcendental if not spiritual..

My last dive was also one that I’m not likely to forget too soon..it was a Drift dive which means we were diving in a strong current. We were visiting ‘Turtle’s Nest’ where a hundred turtles both green turtles and hawksbills congregate to rest, and perhaps breed..Carried by the current, I literally felt like I was flying underwater watching interesting creatures seldom seen, pass me by..As if the hundred turtles, the steely-eyed barracudas and strange-looking bat fish weren’t enough, a rare pod of playful spinner dolphins raced by just as we were surfacing..Something tells me (and its not just my instructor) that it’ll be a snowy day in the Sahara before I get to have a dive like that again..

At the end of this course, I guess I can say with every certainty that there is no singular experience on this planet even remotely as unique as scuba diving. To me, it’s been incredibly gratifying not just because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do, but the feeling of entering into another world and catching a glimpse of the spectacular beauty of Lakshadweep’s underwater life is something that I am truly grateful to have not missed in this lifetime..