Love Whispers, Kalai Selvi Arivalagan [great novels txt] 📗

Morning walk

“Sex can be very emotional, but remember to look at sex in a practical view too so that it won’t dictate how you think and how you feel emotionally. If you can enjoy a person with or without sex, then that’s a special connection.” - Leo ext. 5265

 

For Teena, the day started with a loud bang. The clock showed 4 am. After brushing her teeth, she went to the kitchen to drink water. She did not switch on the lights for it may disturb others who were deep asleep. She searched for a tumbler in the shelves. For a few seconds she struggled to spot the tumblers in the shelf. Slowly her eyes got used to darkness and she now picked up a tumbler to drink a glass of water. The glass filled full with water slipped from her hand and fell on the floor making a loud bang. The water from the glass spilled on the floor and the empty tumbler rolled toward the sink making a loud noise.

    “Sh. Why are you making such a loud noise?” Scolding the inanimate tumbler, she bent down to pick the empty tumbler.

 

“Why did you wake up so early?” Questioning her mother entered the kitchen.

“I am going to the beach today. We will be having the morning turtle walk today.”

“You don’t stay even a day at home. What's the hurry to go now?”

     “Ma, we will be collecting the eggs today and leave them in a safer place.”

 

Her mother chuckled. “I remember how we all picked turtle eggs from the shore every Sunday. Every week we will go to gather those eggs for our weekend lunch.”

 

'You ate turtle eggs. So sad. This shows how people are cruel and they only thought about their food.”

“We could not afford to buy any meat from the market. Turtle eggs were available free in the sea shore. So we would go there to get those eggs. Eggs are nutritious for growing children.”

“Hmm. That's something tragic. We are all now struggling to save nature by protecting these helpless creatures.”

“That is long ago. Now I have stopped eating any non-veg food items. I have become a strict vegetarian.”

“That's good for your health and it is also good for the planet where we live.” Teena answered her mother with a smile.

 

“Will you be coming for lunch? Do you have any plans to eat anywhere?”

 

“I may be going to Reeya's house. Don't wait for me.” Teena ran down the steps and walked briskly to the sea shore.

 

The first streaks of sun light lit the eastern sky. To watch the breathtaking beauty of the morning sunrise makes life a gift. The morning sunrise is a breathtaking display of radiant colors. Bright streaks of red, pink, and orange stealthily took over the dark blue and purple of the twilight sky. For her, the sky resembled a prism; all the colors blended perfectly into each other. The sun peeking out of the horizon with its brilliant rays began to shine brightly and warm the air. The glistening reflection of the sun on the ocean brought to her a thrilling feeling of extreme happiness.

 

Teena expected very few people at that time. But to her surprise the group looked bigger. Little children anxiously gathered to collect turtle eggs. Reeya explained to the group where to look for turtle eggs and how safely they must collect them. The eggs once filled the containers they will be taken to the veterinary college where they will be incubated.

 

With the plastic shovels they started to dig the shallow sand near the sea shore. At the end of two hours, they were able to collect more than 200 eggs. Local people who came there for their morning walk were surprised to see those collecting turtle eggs. Some of them volunteered to collect eggs.

 

After serving the volunteers with glasses of lemon juice, Teena and others loaded boxes of eggs into the truck. When Teena lifted the last box of eggs, it slipped from her hands.

 

“Oh, Stupid” Teena screamed. “Will you please help me?” Luckily the box did not hit on the ground. Yet, some eggs rolled and fell down from the container. The broken eggs splashed on the sand and it spread a nauseating smell in the morning air. Teena could not stand the stench of the eggs. Some of the eggs were partially grown and she looked at them helplessly. Instead of saving those baby turtles she had killed them. The stray dogs that roamed the sea shore came running toward the broken eggs. Within minutes, they snatched a few and devoured them. This sudden turn of event made her sad.

 

“Teena, look there” Reeya exclaimed.

 

To everyone’s surprise they could spot some dolphins. The dolphins were swimming close to each other. After five minutes, they spread out. The dolphins leaped high breaking the surface very often and a few of them also spun out of the water.

 

Teena felt happy to watch the friendly dolphins, which leaped four feet and turned around three times in the air. Reeya told her that they are spinner dolphins. The mammals looked slender with long thin-beak and a distinct stripe connected the long and pointed flippers to the eyes.

 

Spinner dolphins are commonly found in the tropical and sub-tropical oceans. He also told me that only spinner dolphins can spin several times in the air. They frequently jump high out of the water and spin around like a spinning top. Some scientists believe that the spinning behavior is a way of communicating with the other spinners. It may also show the alertness and communicate the school where they are. This acrobatic jump may also help the spinner dolphins to free their food that can be attached to other large fish.

 

Morning times are the celebration time for the spinner dolphins as they play together. The spinners touch and rub each other and engage in playful games. They swim underneath one another and move their pectoral fins back and forth. Some spinners hold hands with their flippers and caress each other with their tail flukes.

 

Spinner dolphins may differ in body size, shape and color patterns. But, in general they have common characters, namely, slender bodies, long and thin beak, small flippers pointed at the tips, and appeared in dark gray, light gray and white colors. Most of these spinner dolphins have white bellies. Spinner dolphins have 45 to 65 teeth, which are pointed in each side of the upper and lower jaws. The spinner dolphin feed on small fishes and squids. The female spinners reach sexual maturity at the age of 4 to 7 years and the male spinners reach maturity at the age of 7 to 10 years. The newborn calves measure 80 cm in length. The female spinner dolphins nurse their calves from one to two years.

 

After watching the dancing dolphins for more than half-an-hour, the group walked to the local coffee shop. After refreshing with a cup of coffee, Teena started home.

 

“You promised to come to my home” Reeya reminded.

 

“Hmm. I will come some other day. Bye.” Without waiting for Reeya, Teena left the place.

 

Once she reached her home, Teena took her favorite teddy bear and gave it a squeezing hug. After holding it for a while, she felt relieved. Her mood changed and she felt relieved.

 

“Is this the power of a good hug?”

 

“Teena, you are back so soon” She knew about Teena and her changing moods and went to prepare lunch.

 

“I badly need a tight hug” Teena murmured.

 

Hug. It can be such a wonderful thing that would relieve you from the mental stress and make you feel happy. Whenever they leave for home during their holidays it became a routine practice to hug each other and wish good luck. She definitely missed her close friends. But now, she needed a bear hug. Her lips tweaked a smile.

 

Where can I go for a warm hug that could set me again with hope? Probably someone who understands me and let me have whatever I want even without asking.

 

“Who can be my soul reader?” Teena felt worried. “I am now in my early twenties. This is the right time to get a person who can bring my dreams true. Yet, she didn’t want to get into the clutches of an early marriage that may restrict her freedom and prevent her from doing what she wanted to do.

 

Marriage may bring in the respect and a place in the society. As a free bird she wanted to explore the world and find out the true happiness as a young girl. It may be great to walk holding hand in hand or ride on the pillion of a bike hugging tightly to the shoulders of your beloved. Yet, that may not bring in what she really thought happiness is. Marriage along with the transparent looking freedom may bring in hidden restrictions that may put a hold on anything that she did freely as a young unmarried girl.

 

Marriage brought changes into the lives of men and women. The society always gave the freedom to men to be as they were earlier. The same society expected married girls to do what it deemed right in the context of the society and family harmony took the first place to rule their personal lives.

 

All these years she has been concentrating on her studies and nothing deviated her focus of winning the academic goals. After completing her research program successfully from an esteemed university, she started her career as a content writer. It took more than a year to get into the flow of a successful career. Now after getting a hold on her future career, her mind started to look into other areas of interests.

 

Teena loved nature more, she loved flowers. She loved birds and animals. Baby animals and birds claimed more of her attention and whenever she had the chance to rescue a baby bird or an animal, she became the first one to be the savior.

 

She let out a deep sigh for she very well knew that would not happen forever.

 

Wait, what type of hug you need?

 

She scrolled through her mobile browser. Something picked her attention. A feeble mew from outside reached her ears.

 

She walked to the kitchen window and peeped outside. Her eyes could not spot the little kitten. The light drizzle suddenly became a downpour. The little kitten hopped on a broken branch of a tree there. The tree stood without leaves and it failed to protect the kitten from the icy cold rain. The kitten shivered in the cold rain and its desperate mews failed to draw anyone's attention. The whole afternoon the kitten clung to the branches of the tree.

 

Teena after having lunch watched television and even without switching off the television, she fell into deep sleep on the sofa. When she woke up, it was 5:30 pm in the evening and it was raining heavily.

 

Suddenly she remembered the kitten in the rain. She peeped out of the kitchen window to see the kitten. She could not see the kitten. Teena wanted to rescue the kitten. Yet, she did not want to take the risk of waddling through the muddy water and get bitten by some unknown insects.

 

Teena switched on the emergency lamp. Unfortunately, the battery was down and she desperately switched it again and again wishing some miracle to happen. For more than 15 minutes she stood watching at the poor kitten. After some futile efforts to save the kitten, the mother cat jumped and sat at the windowsill.

 

The whole night passed on with the continuous wailing from the kitten. The downpour continued in the morning also. But she could see the kitten in the day light. The kitten shivered in the cold rain but the feeble mew continued. She stood near the wall watching the kitten for a while and went to sleep.

 

The rain