River

River

Heard of a place called Lakkidi?
Well… No prizes for guessing the answer…

Lakkidi…
My mom’s birth place…
Where I used to spend my long summer vacations… (It was very long indeed… compared to the 3-4 days looong vacations in corporate life)

Geographically speaking….
It’s a very small village situated on the banks of “Bharata puzha” the largest and most magnificent river in kerala.

It’s one of the rare places in fully literate Kerala where you won’t find any shops near by; buses are very rare, where one can even play cricket on the main road without fearing vehicles.
Means… u can really enjoy the beauty of the nature.
Yes, I would say this is one of the most beautiful places in the communist ruled so called God’s own country.

Toponymy of this place says that this place was once Tipu Sultan’s wood storage camp. The name was actually “Lakkadi” which means “wood” in Hindi. The natives made it “Lakkidi”, the Malayalam version of “Lakkadi”. One can still see the actual name on the railway station board.

Did you hear Railway Station?
An earth-shattering sentence right?
Yeah… this place has a small railway station too.
Sometimes while passing by… I used to drop for a chat with the station master.
He used to tell me some wonderful stories like how one day a super fast stopped here and his dreams of a big station in Lakkidi.
Sometimes I feel like the trains approaching this station increase their speed while passing by.

The moment I reach my mom’s Tharavadu(house), all my tensions, I don’t know why, my small sorrows…worries… everything seems to vanish.

When you take a deep breath with your arms stretched facing the river, well I can’t explain you how exactly you’ll feel, but it’s like…
You’ll feel a special freshness…
A feeling of peace…
Of love…
That’s the magic of Lakkidi…
Something one should experience…

One evening, I was sitting on the steps of my mom’s Tharavadu…
Watching the birds singing…, the flowing river…, Working farmers …

Suddenly I thought if I was a river, how easy my life would be. I just need to flow and flow and finally reach my dear ocean.
Later I tried seeing things from river’s shoes (sounds funny right, but it’s always a good idea to see things from a different perspective). I started realizing how difficult it is to cut a way through the rocks, mountains and reach the ocean.
“Things are not easy as it seems to be” I mused.

This is one thing my friends always grizzle…
That I think and compare such weird things…

“Saleem … Saleem”

It was my cousin calling me…
He looks more like a monkey from a distance…
His looks are proportional to the distance, more the distance… better the looks…

I saw him coming with a tire tube in his hand.

“What Saleem, day dreaming as usual huh?”

“No man, just like that enjoying the beauty of this place”.

“Ok ok”… he told in a bored tone

He was born and bought up in Lakkidi only…

He loves to come to the city, loves to see the huge buildings, loves so see the huge traffic jams, the smelly corporation vehicles, communist strikes and hartals… (That’s a must see festival in kerala)
And all those dirty things in the city.
I sometimes wonder if he is mentally stable…
Hmm… May be he was bored with his slow life…
Like we are bored with our fast mechanical life…

“Guess what this tube is for?” asked my lunatic cousin.

He is always like that. For anything and everything he’ll make you guess.

“What a boring guy” I thought.

“No idea” I said.

“Oh boring Saleem… use your brain”

I acted as if I am thinking. Gestures like that came very useful in my corporate life.

“Ok ill tell u, no need to act…, I am gonna teach you swimming near that check dam”
He said with a smirk.

“What???” I almost screamed.

“Don’t worry buddy, this tube will keep you floating”

“But, that is ok, but… “

“I told u there is no need to worry, and it’s a shame that you don’t know swimming”

Finally after a long chain of arguments, I had to agree.

So started our secret little adventure.

Secret??? Of course secret...
I was not crazy to tell my mom that I was going to learn swimming in that seemingly serene but yet very perilous river?
It’s better if we hide such things from parents, why make them worry unnecessarily.
See how intelligent and caring I was…

But I never knew about the danger that was waiting for me …
I never knew that God was going to show me the world’s only truth…
The only truth…
I never knew… my life was gonna change…
I never knew…

When I reached on top of the dam, I started feeling slight uneasiness.
“Rahim, should I start learning swimming today itself?
Tuesday is not a good day”

That’s how we are, we never take the blame. Here poor “Tuesday” is the victim.

“You urban coward, just tell that you are afraid” he shouted.

“I am not afraid; you know I don’t have a word ‘fear’ in my dictionary”
Sometimes I wonder why I say such stupid dialogues.

“You should have checked that before you bought that dictionary “
He is like that, cracking such poor irritating sardarji jokes in such tense situations.

“Get lost, I know how to learn swimming without your help” I barked.
Later I did repent first for what I said now but later… ?

“Ok fine, am leaving, you live or die, I just don’t care”
Saying that he threw the tube and left.

“Ho my god, what will I do now?, I can’t go back without learning swimming…
I don’t want to become a fool in front of that monkey” I mused.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breadth…
Yes I can feel some courage… yes… some courage… coming deep from my heart…
Well… not exactly heart…
Please don’t ask me from where…
I got it at last…

Psychologically speaking…if you close your eyes…
You can feel a dark world …
With no one to look at you…
Nothing to worry…
No dangers…

Shocked by my psychological approach…?
Wait… there is more to come…

You won’t believe me… But
I did jump to the river with my cousin’s tube…
Tube… my only tool… that will help me to float…

Water was very cold… and I was floating…
So far so good…

My success made me smile…
Yes… I was smiling…
Smiling with pride…
Not knowing… what’s waiting for me…

Good that people can’t see their future…
If they could see… I would never have smiled…

If one can see… if they knew what’s waiting for them…
One can neither live in the present or future…
One can never enjoy the present moment…
That’s exactly why we should stay far far away from astrologers… palmists… and whatever so…


“Hiss”…. “Hiss”….

Did I hear some hissing sound?
“Hiss”…

Yes… I heard.

I turned and looked around. I have heard of water snakes. But…

“No it’s can’t be a snake.” I thought.
Thinking positively in such situation will always help you to suppress fear.

“Hey, was this tube a bit bigger sometime back right?” I mused
Yes… I had started using my brain… which nowadays… I rarely use…

“Ho my god, don’t tell me…the sound was coming from my tube.” I prayed.
But… it was…
That nincompoop had given me a punctured tube.

Yes, I was drowning alone in that river which had already swallowed enough people; I wonder why it wanted me too.
First thing that came to my mind was that I should have asked my parents before coming here.

Well good thoughts are always like Kerala Police; it’s always late and comes only in the climax scene...
Bad thoughts are like robbers and smugglers…
They are always there in the scene…

I tried to cry for help…
But hey… where’s my sound…???
I didn’t know that fear first attacks one’s sound box…

I did some actions with my hands and legs which kept me floating for sometime…
But that didn’t last long…
Slowly… I sank…

Though I was fighting for my life… against death
As I was losing my consciousness…
As I was facing the only truth in human life… the DEATH

Some thoughts started haunting me…
Some thoughts that may seem strange to other people who have never faced such a situation…

The one big question… the question that every man will have to face one day…

What I did in my life…?

Did I do anything good?
Did I ever make a difference in anyone’s life?
Did I ever help anyone other than criticizing others…?
Was I hoggish?
I always wanted to leave some mark of my existence that will last for ever…
Did I follow my dream?

I was always afraid to follow my dreams…
I did what others did…
I studied what my parents told me…
Yes, I had a decent job… But was that I wanted in my life?

I wanted to do something different…
I wanted to make some difference… no matter how small it is…
I always wanted to…

But… now it was too late…

I prayed…
God… give me one more chance… please…
I knew it’s late now, but I prayed….
But… I prayed…
I prayed till I lost my consciousness.

I don’t know what happened next.
But when I opened my eyes… I saw some people wearing green masks standing around me…
It took sometime to realize that it was a hospital…
Yes…I was very much alive.

I smiled…
I didt know how to thank god…
I was lucky…. Very lucky…
He gave me another chance…
To do what I wanted to do… to follow my dream… to make a difference… to leave some marks of my existence…

You may not get a second chance like this… You may not be lucky like saleem…
At times we realize things only we are confronted with such situations…
But it will be too late then…

Whatever it is… do it before it’s too late…

Remember… We have only one life…