There is a dark sea above and a dark sea below. With one I am transfixed, with the other forever moving. Above, the arched firmament is smeared with galactic grey and sprinkled with silver brilliance of stars uncounted. Below, a fathomless depth hides under a smooth lustre, crested with white ribbons of surf and the luminescent wake of our passage.

And there is, with the wind, the gentle wind, tugging at my t-shirt, sifting through my hair, my eyes, eyelashes, over my hands and my legs, sighing in my ears, a light swell on which the boat rises, and a moment poised on a vertex of consciousness, filled with being.

In boundless seas, I am transfixed, I am moving, I am.

Spinner dolphins (Video: NCF)
Spinner dolphins video by Kalyan Varma

… This post first appeared under the title ‘Dancing with Dolphins’ in The Hindu Sunday Magazine on 13 March 2012 and on the NCF blog, EcoLogic, on 20 April 2012. Read more in The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.