Spotting Octopuses & More in Bombay! (Tanisha Guin)
This piece is by 19-year old, Tanisha Guin, a travel blogger in India.
A Walk That Made Me Bring Every Moment Alive! Spotting Octopuses and More In Bombay!
Right from the day we are brought up as teenagers we’ve always been taught of being rational, logical and calculative. We’ve been taught of embracing materialistic things and equating them to happiness. It’s right there where we start as being competitors and take the initial stepping stone to be a part of the rat race like a thousand others.
I was brought up just the same way. Till I turned 15, I too dreamt of settling for a well-paid job and doing all the stuff that my parents did!
It wasn’t until my first trip to North East India following which my life changed. The varied cultural connections, the difference in language and attire, the heterogeneity of cuisines and land topography had left me mind-bending towards the seven sisters of India.
Since that day, I have been tremendously inclined towards travelling and doing things what I love to do! That trip in 2013 has left in me something that can’t be described with mere words, but all I can say is it has surely made me capable of listening to what my heart has to say and learning to trust my instincts thereafter in almost every aspect of life!
The wanderlust that I had nurtured suppressively for quite a long time now; wanted to find its way into realism.
I had barely any money to sustain my wandering dreams when I started travelling in 2016! So with the little I had, and the little more I saved, I started exploring my own city – Mumbai. With the gradual passage of time, I longed for travelling to distant countryside hideouts; to sustain which I did several short-term jobs and took up some freelance assignments and headed off to the road.
This went quite well for about a year until when I had an overwhelming feeling of doing and feeding too many things on my plate beside being a full-time University student!
So far, people wished to live the life I was living as a teen student and full-time traveller, but somewhere though I started feeling stuck in a monotony of being a multi-tasker and doing versatile jobs ranging from attending regular college lectures, blogging, being active on social media, freelancing, working as a tutor at a non-profit and a few others.
The stargazing nights were now replaced with puffy eyes and sleepless nights, and sunset hours were now spent in the packed daily local commute!
I decided to take a break from all the juggling tasks and the highly hectic schedule. I took off from all that I did and started afresh at a slower pace. One thing at a time. Living a day by its moments and not letting any second pass by without a smile.
I started attending different events and trying out my hands with anything new I could experience. From art exhibitions to literature fests, human interaction one-to-one sessions to Marine Walk in the heart of Bombay (yes, you heard it right!), I tried it all!
In between all of this, I felt closer to my inner self and grew in more of acceptance towards the outer world.
Among all the events that I attended the Marine Walk was something I truly hold a special place in my heart for!
I had always portrayed Bombay as the city where people are always on the go of reaching some or the other destination. Somewhere in this vague futility I too had started chasing something, one after the other but with an unclear picture insight.
But I actually had to rethink twice when I read about the Marine Walk right at Girgaum Chowpatty! I know you do, too!
I hopped on for the walk amidst the low tides and a glimmery sunshine on the very next day! I was amazed at finding two octopuses, cuttlefishes, baby sharks, squid eggs, multiple sea anemones, and sea snakes to name a few among the many others!
Now, I’d rather keep mum for a while and let the pictures tell you the story!
Sea Anemones (above & below).
Octopus
A conch shell laying eggs
Eggs of a Conch Shell
Three dotted crabs
Cuttlefish (above & below)
Sea Algae
Baby Shark!
Eel
Stingray
Squid eggs
Late afternoon changed to a shimmery sunset sky and a gleamy stretch of wet sand. Those 90 minutes passed like the pumping heartbeat! All that while, among a group of yet many others, I witnessed a different kind of joy within. The joy of living in that moment and rejoicing every next second!
Every next minute brought in us a new sort of excitement and a foreign bliss in the mundane chaos and filth of Bombay!
Our team
Carpe Diem’ ~ (to live in the present moment), it’s easier said than done, but once you’ve lived it, you can not let it pass by!
Chilling by the sea, while the Sun heads on to set!
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Visit Tanisha's blog StepsandStreerts to read the full version of this article.
