Keep hearing conch-shell murmurs

I have walked on pure sandy beaches holding her hand in my carefree days. I have dug holes in the sea shore, patiently waiting for the waves to come and turn them into wells. Thus she taught me patience. She pointed at the horizon and showed me the countless colours the rising sun gave the sky as her dawn-clothes. She showed me the returning boats with their catch, emerging from the far skyline with the morning sun. Thus she taught me hope.
She would pick sea shells for me and occasionally an uncut pearl that had washed off shore. She would press a huge conch shell into my ear and let me listen to the eternal melody of the ocean. Thus she taught me music.
When time went by, despite her frail, aging stature, she grew to be the mighty ocean in my life. Her kindness was the soothing sea breeze and her smile was synonymous with the rise and fall of gentle waves. It was a sad twist of fate when her life was dragged away by the same sea waves she taught me to love and the same creamy foam that tickled our feet.
It was not only my Achchi whose life was swept away by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, but that of so many. After long six years after the tragedy, we still look at the figures of causalities with sense of wonderment and ask ourselves a thousand times why they had to die. The infants, the young and the old, they were all scapegoats of one big sin we all did- taking our ocean for granted.
We gaze at stars and dream of conquering far away planets when we don’t know our backyard well. It is easier for everyone to call the strange light that crosses your skyline a UFO, but it is harder to figure out the causes for half of the natural disasters that hit us when we least expect them.
The ocean has not asked for any of the things we dump into it; tonnes and gallons oil, waste matter and sometimes excess harvest. It was just like we never asked for a tsunami. Those who survived the waters would tell you how murky that water was and how different it tasted from the usual sea-salty water.
The period I hated sea for taking Achchi away soon came to an end. She had all the reasons to love the sea and now so have I. She breathed in the same air that cooled the surface of the ocean and it is time I make sure the surface of the ocean is cool enough for me breath blissfully. Times have changed and so have the obligations and responsibilities.