Just after having a light dinner at Hotel Drim — where the poets of the festival were putting up, I was walking to the park of poetry — when a Brazilian poet Márcio André came running be-hind with two cans of beer. I thought we would paint the town red pushing tin all night. Contrarily, sitting on a bench behind a tree dedicated to Pablo Neruda, both of us pondered over a line — sorrows have no benches to settle from a poem by Endre Russet, which he read the previous day at an auditorium. The Brazilian, always on a mission, suddenly shot an idea of stealing a boat from the shore of Lake Ohrid and peddle it one kilometre into the waters of this old lake. What! Really? Steal a boat? Are you out of your mind? My intellect was running out of steam and this sudden idea from Márcio — acted as a stimulating drug in my veins. It was supplemented with a spontaneous Yes Yes Yes! from Márcio. I have already stolen a knife from the hotel kitchen for this purpose, he added. He had a ploy of cutting one of the ropes with which the boats were held to the shore. We went to a nearby pub to have few Tequila shots before we could muster courage for executing such an act without the trepidation of being behind bars in a foreign land. As he got up, I asked, Are you still sure? He threw a sardonic smile at me and took me to the hotel again. We could go straight and do it, I said. There’s another one to join us, his eyes gleamed with killer ideas. Just then Harry Man, an English poet, who was awarded the Bridges of Struga earlier that evening stood beside us with a white towel in his hand. Can we …, he exclaimed. An ascetic face of Harry smiled like Mr. Bean and Márcio — in a queer attire of black coat and white shorts danced around with the stolen knife. There was no escape from this adventure. There was no looking back. We stepped out. It was 2 am at night.
Márcio walked left from the hotel and we followed, treading on the wheels of the unexpected. We power walked, straight to the lakeside where the boats were tied by ropes. Psyched up for a swim followed by a boat tour, Márcio opened his coat and Harry his shirt, as I stood behind, hovering like a kite — whether to break loose and fly or remain tied to the ground. Márcio beheaded my concerns by tearing off my shirt and perhaps — I was biding for this time — to leap into a late night adven-ture. As we slowly foot-stepped into the lake, an amicable warmth greeted our pounding hearts. The only sound was — of the waters moving around our bodies and we three felt like three spirits breathing alive in the hush. Far away from our homes, we were in for an operation, that we never even thought of trying in our own countries. The vivacity of the unsure was rhapsodic. Suddenly Márcio trudged out of the waters toward a boat and I went after him. He picked up the stolen knife and cut the rope that anchored the boat to the shore. We did it! I was hesitant at the begin-ning saying, Our reputation is at stake Marcio. What fuck is reputation, he exclaimed and started pushing the boat into the waters. I thought I was getting into some mistake but then some-thing flashed across my drunken mind, We are afraid of presumed mistakes and sequels — be-cause the quest of trials and errors in life is full of dilemmas. And as we become exhausted in our quest to achieve true happiness from ‘available resources’ and ‘information based understanding’, we tend to become seekers — seekers of the very nature of the energy that makes us, sustains us and liberates us. Money, Fame and Power are all at our eye level. We should try to look upwards, beyond that and realise the worth of our movements — in front of the discipline of rotating planets and homeless asteroids. The very hypothesis of slipping into the world of mistakes won’t create any stir then. We should never fear probable predicaments, in the quest of experimenting with our energy. We have been born out of energy and this energy expects us to decode its existence in every bit of our breath.
Without another thought, I jumped into the waters pushing the boat deeper into the lake. Márcio started paddling it while I and Harry swam around.
As we were about to get up on the boat and declare the lake as our property — we saw a torch from the bank — pointing like a lighthouse beam towards us. Before we could apprehend anything, someone started whistling from the shore — the coastguard. Without misspending any moment, we sprung inside the waters and tried to keep low. The guard came in a paddleboat to liberate his prop-erty from the clutches of three crazy poet-thieves. We tried hard to keep our heads inside the waters but as we started running out of breath — our drenched despicable faces were revealed. You steal Boat, I call the Policia! the man panicked as he took out his mobile. No No we saw the boat in the lake and we came down to rescue it. Don’t get our virtuous activity wrong old man, I lied brazenly. Harry looked at my shamelessly lying face while Márcio in his ever-enthusiastic voice exclaimed No Policia…Poesia…we are here for Struga Poesia! Harry added yes and we would help you get the boat out of here. Push Sonnet, Push Márcio! We started pushing the boat and somehow we were able to dispel the guy’s doubts about us. He got convinced that we were poets and the police involvement could be avoided. We were full of beans from inside, but looked as if the butter wouldn’t melt in our mouth. We had a narrow escape, yet we failed to control our smiles — they were partying hard inside our seemingly serious cheeks and lips.
We pushed the boat to the point from where it was pulled down into the lake. Beating a hasty re-treat, we took back our clothes and started walking fast toward the hotel. Soaked, saturated and cold I asked Márcio and Harry about the knife. Where have you kept it? — It is inside the boat, he laughed wickedly. I needed some good sleep. It was almost 3:00 am but the epilogue was still to be written. We stopped by a closed Albanian bar. Few people were sitting and relaxing outside — who later familiarised themselves as the bar owners. As we introduced ourselves to be poets from three different countries — they brought beer cans and a soccer ball from inside, played a loud music for us to dance and started playing soccer with us. Four on three — we were badly defeated. Suddenly, a guy came up to me with a bucket of ice asking me for an ice bucket challenge. It was cold, but my zeal kept me warm. I took the ice bucket challenge twice, as Harry and Márcio danced crazily around me like lunatics. This was like a VICTORY celebration of the triumphant Boat-adventure we just had.
We returned to our respective rooms at about 4 am, and I fell flat on my bed. An unusual sense of achievement loomed over my wits. Sometimes succeeding in life goes without any real accom-plishment. Sometimes it is realised by exposing ourselves to our immediate nature and surroundings. Perhaps on that night we realised Poetry beyond the Bridges event. This story which has been a gossip in many festivals, may fade with time, but the waters of lake Ohrid and the mountains nearby will always murmur it to anyone who visits them in the dead of the night.
I can still recall the smell of that night and the zeal that persisted within us on that day of the 53rd Struga Poetry Evenings. For people like me who believe poetry to be as exciting as a blooming flower, this night was like a breathing poem.