786 | A SILENT PRAYER
786.In Arabic numerology, the numerical equivalent of Bismillah, in the name of God.
On the Kovalam coast, it is painted on the hull of a fishing boat.
A vessel carrying that name into open water is already a prayer.
A village. Pre-dawn to past midday. The open, rough Arabian Sea.
The men of Kovalam have been reading this coastline for generation hauling seine nets
in long human chains, their bodies bending into the same angles their fathers held.
They came back with one stingray. Four fish.
Nine hours. One stingray. Four fish.
A fishing village to feed.
The prayer was not enough.
This essay does not ask what an empty ocean means.
It only watches, the rope coiled on wet sand, the men standing together
at the water's edge with almost nothing, looking at what the sea returned.
The arithmetic that doesn't balance but the boat that go
