The Young India

Kartikey Sehgal
“I held his hand for a few seconds but the waves pulled him inside”, says Siddharth Patil, a lifeguard at Mumbai’s Aksa Beach at Mudh Island, where a man lost his life while swimming in high tide waves at around 1 p.m. on Sunday, April 26.

Siddharth was tired and angry after his attempt. “I had warned them twice to not go into the water but they are like animals; they don’t pay any heed to safety.” Siddharth claims that this is the first drowning in six months at the beach that is known for death by drowning.

Kartikey Sehgal

When I am drenched
And the heart feels aloof
Absent to the constant pain

Let me drown, that moment
And not think again
Or doubt
The profundity of my talents

In killing I have taken a decision. Undeterred by humanity. Or the countless million voices that reason with reason. I belong to myself, a complete, I am. In me lies the final pang of life; in me lies the strength to reach out to the shore.

Kartikey Sehgal
I cannot accept the mirth of trivialities. Of a living below life. I’d rather joke with the honest labourer whose design on the wet brick is hardened by the sun; harmony between nature and men.

But I am given, and society has ordained, the acceptance of rooms without sunlight, precision defined within dark windows and glass doors.

Shaival Thakkar writes from Ahmedabad about the restaurant that is built around graves