On my first three weeks in Bombay

Diego had never seen the sea. His father, Santiago Kovadloff, took him to discover it. They traveled south.

She was there, the sea, just beyond the highest of sandbanks. Waiting.

When the boy and his father finally reached the top of that little mountain of sand, the sea burst into sight. So immense was the sea, and such was her brilliance, that the boy was left speechless by her beauty.

And when he finally managed to speak--trembling, stuttering--he pleaded to his father: "Help me see!"

-Eduardo Galeano's "La funcion del arte/1," translated from Spanish

Photograph by Leobudv