SEEING IS NOT BELIEVEING

It all happened in Trichy in the year 1992 or 1993. I was a bachelor with decent earnings, living away from home with enough money and time  to indulge.

On that Sunday, I woke up, realizing that there is nothing  to do for the whole day. All my house mates had gone to their homes and I was alone. Pondered over going to films, the one and only recreation of those days. All the seeable films were already seen. So, what next? I can roam around Rockfort, but that will be enjoyable only  in the company of  a friend or two. Could not kill more than half hour on thinking about how to kill the day, as one of my friends living in our Woraiyur neighbourhood, Panneer parked his cycle at the entrance and stepped in.

The moment I saw him, I could figure out that he too is facing the same problem and it was indeed  a reason to feel happy about. He asked me about going to Cauvery river for a swim. He further reminded me that I learnt swimming a fortnight ago, even as I was considering his idea. Having nothing else to do, I hesitatingly agreed. Normally a minimum of 4 friends used to accompany me to the river. On this occasion, I had to go with just one.

I had a quick breakfast at a nearby  Mess, rode off on a rented bicycle with Panneer through the congested lanes of  Woraiyur and in no time, we were at our usual place on the bank of  the river. It was located on the outskirts of the city, where none used to come and hence it remained calm and clean. Rarely, one could see  a local villager filling his bullock cart  with the sand of the bank.

On that day too, the villager was taking sand from the banks, this time with great difficulty, as the banks were fully submerged in water. His pair of  bulls were floating at about 6 feet inside the river. The  cart was parked with due care, partly in the river and the front portion extending outside the bank. The villager had tied himself to one of  the bovines, dived to the river bed, collected sand in a wooden basket and kept filling the cart. Otherwise there were  no signs of any human activities, whatsoever.

Cauvery was in her pristine beauty, overflowing both  the banks. Everything, as far as one could see was green, full of life. Shoals of  fish folk were darting along  with gay abundant. It had all it takes to bring the mind to a complete pause and you literally get dissolved  and feel yourself as a part of the surroundings and not as a separate entity. Space and time cease to exist and blessed are those who could feel IT.

Panneer didn’t let me  remain in that bliss for long enough. He stripped off himself to just a brief , dived into the river with outstretched hands and started flaunting his wide range of swimming skills and ordered me to follow suit. I  wondered why this guy was showing off so much and was convinced without an iota of  doubt that he would have had a quite bath, if I was not there.    

As I was getting myself  sufficiently undressed,  fear started gripping me. I had been here with my friends a number of times before, to learn Swimming.  My last visit to Cauvery was a fortnight ago and only then I started floating and even made a few successful strokes to the surprise of  friends, swimming around me, training and protecting me. My friends acknowledged that I had learnt Swimming and my joy knew no bounds. For a moment, I thought of myself as Lord Krishna and those surrounding me in the river as privileged Gopikas.

It took a while before I could use all my will power to surmount the inhibitions and  start walking slowly inside the river. I consoled myself saying that even if I couldn’t swim, the villager and Panneer would save me.

My friend  didn’t lose the golden opportunity to advise me and  scold me. My feet could feel the fury of Cauvery, as they moved inch by inch inside the river. I slowly, but steadily walked further  into the river. Now water was flowing at my chest level and I had no option but to swim. I could feel myself floating and started just stroking. Panneer shouted at me to go a little bit  away from the banks, lest I may bang against the bulls and their lethal horns. I just had a look at the bulls and they too looked at me or at least  it seemed so. That’s it. I started panicking and couldn’t swim any longer. I tried my best to the last bit of  energy and it was of no use. I started drowning and no longer I could do anything consciously to save me. All that followed on my part was completely instinctive. I felt my  hands spontaneously going above the water level, as I started drowning.

Panneer swam to my help. Even as he held my hair, I reciprocated with a bear hug. He remained inside the water and tried his best to push me away from him and towards the banks, but couldn’t, as he was under my vice grip. My friend, with great difficulty pushed  me above the water level, but that was of no use, as I didn’t loosen my grip on his shoulders and was drowned. Again, I was  pushed  to the surface by him , only to be drowned in the next moment and this cycle went on repeatedly.   I lost all my hope and believed that both of us are on our way to  watery grave. I could see the river and sky spinning around with a buzzing sound and  have no words to express what it felt like. There were no signs of the villager, coming to our rescue.  I resigned to my fate and gave up, but my hands were not relaxing the grip. But my friend didn’t relent. He kept pushing me towards the bank.

 Suddenly something rocky hit my back, waking me up from a near death state and I realized that I was pretty close to the bank. Panneer got liberation from my steel grip and somehow, I could hold onto the rocks on the bank with my hands and crawled  out of the river. I lay down on my back on the bank, totally shocked and stunned.  My saviour  slowly emerged from the river and sat by the side of me, quietly.

Now the villager lazily walked towards us, reminding me of the perennial Policeman appearing without fail at the end of the Tamil movies, after the hero single handedly  had beaten a battalion of goons and guns. I could feel a sense of kindness towards me and anger towards my companion, as he enquired whether we were alright.

Then he uttered towards Panneer, “if  this Sir was not there, you can not be sitting here now.”

A few minutes later we rode our way back to our houses, feeling  an uncomfortable and heavy web of silence around us.

On reaching our neighbourhood, we parted ways without saying ‘bye’.  I wasted no time to fall on  bed, on reaching my house. Tried my best to sleep, but couldn’t, thanks to the uninterrupted flashbacks of my adventure in the mind screen.

A few hours later, the door was knocked. It was Panneer. He immediately left, but only after saying this.

“It would have been really better, had we died. That villager couldn’t have said that to me ”.