ဝေလငါးကြီးပဲ ဖြစ်ချင်တော့တယ်ဗျာ
I have seen a whale only once. That was years ago in New Zealand. I had paid to see it, a sperm whale. I never saw its entire body, it was just the part that surfaced briefly before the dive. Despite feeling miserably seasick, I tried my best to capture the moment on my phone when our guide whispered that it was about to descend. I managed to record it: the tail lifting, arching gracefully, before disappearing into the vast ocean depths. When we finally returned to shore, I sat on the beach until the dizziness eased, and later sketched the whale’s tail in my journal. That remains my first and to this day, my last encounter with a whale in its natural habitat.
After the coup, I found myself in Ngapali, one of the most beautiful beaches in Myanmar. There, with the support of Myanmar Ocean Project, I volunteered to teach a group of teenagers about ecosystems. The stories we learnt were crafted by a group of scientists and NGO travellers, part of a project called Constructive Vision. It was enjoyable enough, at least for a man who had fled a cocked-up Yangon life in search of some inner-peace in a paradise. Then January came with reports of whale sightings off along the coast. Locals spoke of it. Tourists had snapped it and even fishermen I met told me of encounters with blue whales and whale sharks. Needless to say, each story left me burning with envy.
For as long as I can remember I have got this dream, say it a wish, which is to swim with a whale or at the very least with a whale shark. I can’t say how it began but this has been lodged on my bucket list for long enough now. Every time I took a boat out to sea or visited nearby islands I secretly hoped for a whale to appear and if it ever had, I would have jumped in with nothing but a snorkel, and watched it from a respectful distance. But my Ngapali days came and went, and the dream never came fulfilled.
Later I spent a year and a half in Maungdaw. Despite the hardships and months trapped by a conflict three months after my arrival, I made the best of it. I left just before the situation deteriorated further, thanks to God’s grace. Back in Yangon however I found the old me once again: the depressed, unfocused, and shaken one. The old self, of course, returned. Towards the end of the year, I joined an emotional well-being group, and during one ice-breaker we were asked to represent ourselves with an animal. Others chose eagle, tiger, lion: all the usual symbols of power, and I chose a whale. I remembered explaining to them that a whale can travel freely across the world without a passport. I suppose what I was really yearning for was freedom at that time. I felt trapped in my daily life.
In monsoon, came Mikey, my dear best friend and brought the much-needed light in me. Our days together were blissful. We visited many cafes, restaurants, and bars. One day he showed me poetry book, a collection of Burmese poems. (I no longer recall the author now). What caught my eye was the title: I love you as much as a whale, and still vividly remember its cover which depicted a humpback whale jumping out of the blue water. I did not know what motivated him because some weeks later he had a whale tattooed beneath his collarbone. It was a small one. He had wanted a full humpback whale along his side as well but that never happened. He left before the end of the monsoon without a word of goodbye.
Yet, my obsession with whales remained unchanged. A month ago, I joined a clay workshop where we use clay as the medium to express ourselves. Of course, I chose to sculpt a whale, a sperm whale. Say it extreme, perhaps but this whale obsession follows me everywhere. My laptop background is a humpback whale and so is my screensaver, a playful one swimming endlessly across the screen.
According to Buddhist belief, there are thirty-one planes of existence with the human plane considered one of the best. Yet here I am, a human, wishing I could be a whale, with an uncontrollable desire to roam the vast oceans freely, migrating from one place to another without borders. Having said that, I am also aware of what Buddha had taught, no being is without suffering. Therefore, it goes without saying that whales have their burdens too. I have seen theirs on documentaries, the endless feeding to sustain their vast bodies is one to begin with, and not to mention the many other threats they face throughout their life time. Yes, but despite them I believe their burdens would be somewhat less than mine and still wish to become one or at the very least to swim alongside one before I leave this earth. I want to fulfil it.
မှောင်မိုက်တဲ့ညမှာ
ကြယ်ကလေးလို
လင်းလက်၊ တောက်ပ ပါ။
အပြောကျယ်တဲ့
ပင်လယ်မှာ
ဝေလငါးကြီးလို့
လွတ်လပ်စွာ၊ ကူးခပ် ပါ။
ကျနော်ကတော့ အရက်ဆိုင်မှာ။