Coral Trance

If there is one super-organism on this planet that makes me feel alien, it is the coral reef systems and the vibrant multicolored forms of life-forms that thrive amongst it.

From my very first glimpse, snorkeling near Andamans as a youngster, to my latest in Menjangan islands near Bali, I am as astonished, disoriented and dismayed as I was the first time. The sparkling blue starfish, the multi-hued fans of corals, the perplexed look of an exquisitely striped clownfish, the cascades of delicate polyps, the quick flip of a startled sea-turtle at a distance, have all left me bewildered and anxious not enthralled or mesmerized. Viewed through snorkeling gear or a glass bottomed boat, the blue underwater world has always been a fretful and uneasy experience.

I have friends who have dived deeper and longer and in far flung places, as professionals and hobbyists, and they confess that they too find the under-sea life forms disconcerting.

What does fascinate me, is the fact that, despite all the documentaries , all the research, all the animation films , technological advances, the eternally supreme human race, unequivocally and humbly acknowledges that it doesn’t know enough about life under sea. It is pathetic but true, that after harvesting the seas for centuries to feed itself and having made it the official disposal site of the entire species’ waste, the wisest on the planet have no effing clue.

No wonder, my worst nightmares feature memories from the coral killing fields at Gulf of Mannar, the warehouse of wasting unsold shell and coral handicrafts near Chonburi, the menu of rare sea-creatures in restaurants in Cebu and Kevin Costner’s webbed feet and gills from Water world. I have always woken up from these nightmares shouting out to Nemo, calling for help, but he swims away to make friends with a funny looking kid with a little bottle of cyanide.

So, don’t psyche yourself, skip all the diving destinations of the world, don’t go, even if it promises you the most ecstatic of times, don’t go , its good for you and good for corals and all those deadly life forms that live in their.