Photograph by Ashvin Mehta The sea I have loved since my childhood, and photographed mostly in black-and-white since the early 1960s, is the sea of abstract designs on changing areas of wet sand formed by ebbing waters at low tide, of criss-crossing streamlets or eddies around rocks, of patterns formed on the beach by wind and grass, insects and pebbles. It is the silent, primeval sea, stark, beautiful and unchanged over the ages, belonging to no land and no time, and totally devoid of any human element. When the present book was proposed, I was hesitant. I wanted my inner vision to adjust to new parameters of colour, distance and the human presence. This happened after nearly ten months of waiting, and I agreed to photograph the coast of India, along its 6000 km-long sandy, rocky and marshy stretch of land and on islands nearby.

Among my encounters with seething humanity were those at Ganga Sagar during the annual fair on Makar Sankranti (14 January); at Puri, where thousands daily greet the rising sun with folded hands; at Chowpatti, Bombay, when idols of Ganesh are immersed in the sea; and at Dwarka on ‘Gokul Ashtami', the day Lord Krishna was born. I could experience how the sea itself became, for the devotee, the vast body of the deity he worshiped; bathing in the sea was a way of touching and communicating with it. At these and many other places of pilgrimage, associated with both Hindu and non-Hindu shrines-such as Velankani (Christian) and Nagore (Muslim) in Tamil Nadu - it was difficult not to be swept away by the religious fervour of pilgrims.

Among fishing communities all over the country - whether out of gratitude or out of feat of the elements, or both - reverence for the sea, as a concrete form of the formless Reality, is most prevalent. It cuts across all barriers of religion and expresses itself in a number of customs and rituals and festivals. In particular I was struck by the aesthetic expression of this reverence by the fishermen of Bengal, who carve the hull of their ships in the form of a goddess, and dress it with clothes and flowers. I came to love the fishermen of Gopalpur and Chorwad, of Goa and Karwar, and my initial reaction to their bare weather-bitten bodies and the pervading stench of fish, gave way to silent admiration for their way of life. I felt that they may be reflecting the wisdom of a Shankaracharya or a Krishnamurti - that the insecure are truly free, that every day is a new day with joys and challenges all its own. At times, without any forethought, I joined family members in anxiously awaiting the fishermen's return from a catch, or became excited when they obtained a good price at the fish auction! Among the most memorable images I cherish as a photographer, and the places I long to visit again as an individual are Calangute, Goa during the summer months; Rameshwaram around Pongal festival; Ganga Sagar during the annual winter fair, and Puri during the Puja holidays. Here, as nowhere else, have I felt the bonds of the land of my birth the strongest. I experienced as though I was never born and will never die. Time flowed through me, leaving me untouched. During the course of eight months I worked on this book, there were many moments of ecstatic joy. For hours I was all-alone, a silent witness to the great order manifesting itself in the tides of the sea, in the life cycles of its insects and plants, and in the seasonal changes. It was then that the vast sheet of water before me was transformed into the blue immanence, and submerged me totally. The images I offer are but a pale reflection of this sparkling and invigorating experience. Ashvin Mehta is one India's finest travel and nature photographers. This has been extracted from his book 'Coasts of India'.