My Second Birthday — 19th January
By: Amanpreet Singh Bhasin
Tags: Life Lessons, Birthday, Life, Kerala, Beach

It is 19th January 2020 6:40 PM the sun has set and I’m enjoying the beautiful and ethereal look of the ethnic Sky from the balcony of a cafe in Varkala. Varkala is a small town with a beautiful, enchanting and appealing beach and beauteous and picturesque sunset view.

The Balcony of the cafe in Varkala

My office friend — Gurjot and I had landed in Trivandrum on the morning of 18th January 2020. Having broken our Camera lens during travel, we struggled a lot to get it fixed. After roaming for hours in lanes of Trivandrum as per the directions given to us by locals, and endless calls made to DSLR repair shops in the town we got it fixed. It was not all, we missed our train from Trivandrum to Varkala. Now we had to wait for another train. After waiting for an exhausting hour, we finally boarded the train and reached Varkala.

It was evening, we went to the hostel and had a mandatory and much-needed sleep of half an hour in our dorms. Post the slumber we got up and went for a walk along the beach had some photos and even enjoyed the Saturday party with some beer and dance. It was good. Meanwhile, we even made a few friends in the hostel. They were Karni and Vivek. Vivek was from Bangalore and Karni from Trichi. It was an exhausting yet a good day.

We slept at around 12. We had to get up early the next day as we had planned to go to the much talked about Varkala beach and enjoy the waves. We planned to get up at 5:30 AM and slept.

It was 7:30 AM. Karni was in our room to wake me and Gurjot. It was late we woke up and took all the accessories and rushed ourselves to the beach. The sun was cool, and it was an amazing morning. We soon had our beach wears on and entered the water to bang against those alluring waves. There we were four of us me, Gurjot, Vivek and Karni. We enjoyed the water. It was my first beach trip. In fact, my first long trip without my parents.

The Varkala Beach

Gurjot, Vivek and I did not know swimming. Karni had learnt swimming during his village days and was further inside into the sea gliding over the waves. We the other three were back towards the shore with waist-level water. We were enjoying to the fullest this morning. Karni was floating effortlessly over the water, I asked him that how did he glided and floated over the waves so well. He told me that it was easy, and one must just take a deep breath and close one’s nose and mouth and jump over the wave as soon as the wave arrives. I tried it. It turned out to be easy. He held my hand as the waves were a bit strong and we went a bit further away from the shore. We glided over the waves; Karni assisted me to balance the force of the tides. It was turning out quite enjoying and effortless. Suddenly there was a high wave and water was up to my chin. Karni was taller with shoulder-high water. I felt uncomfortable. The waves had taken us a bit further down and Karni too felt the same. I sought Karni’s help, he gripped me and pushed me forward, it was two times that he did that. I was holding him tight. All of a sudden, he tried to get me off. I was nervous but held him firm. He shrieked in panic to leave him. He shook himself away and I left the hold. Now I was there alone I felt no one beside me. I pushed water down by both my hands, hoping I’ll come a bit up. As soon as my face surfaced up, I called for help and waved my hands. I just tried pushing water down in order to come up. I flapped my legs did everything I could to move towards the shore, but none worked then. I tried to breathe but I was going farther away into the sea because of the retreating waves. I realized water entering my lungs and stomach. I could feel them filling up. I was very nervous and panicked but pushed myself harder to keep flapping my hands to push water down. I tried to breathe but could not remain over the surface of water for more than a second. I was going down. I could feel nothing below my feet. The waves had turned me around, and now I was facing the ocean and could see no one. It would have been five to seven minutes of me struggling there. I realized that soon I would begin sinking and would not be alive anymore. One thing and the only thing that I remembered at that moment was my mother. When I told her that I was coming here, she told me endless times on the phone to not go much inside the water and take care of myself. She even whatsapped me a countless number of times reiterating the same. I was afraid that how would she feel about it. I knew she would not be able to live without me. She would regret that she allowed me to come here. I could feel her pain, but I was helpless. I wanted to live for her. I had not spent much time with her and wanted more time to serve and love her. She is so loving, considerate and caring. She used to grow so impatient whenever something related to me was concerned that my father or sister had to intervene to make her calm. All these thoughts raced through my mind. I felt that I could not hold more, but still even with slower and weaker strokes, I continued flapping. Water was full up to the brim of my lungs and stomach. It was now just water that I was taking in. I felt the end.

Suddenly, I felt a firm grip of a pair of hands. I heard someone speaking that all is okay and not to panic. Then there was one more person and then one more. He too gripped me tightly. They held me by my shoulders and tried to pull me towards the shore. Those hands boosted a spark of power inside me and me too with a sense of hope tried aiding them by pushing water back with my legs. They had put a board below my head to prevent my face from getting submerged. After a few moments, my feet could feel the sand. I stood up firmly and they accompanied me out of the water to the beach.

I was standing at the shore. I looked up at the sky and felt the warmth of nature. I felt the nature embrace and welcome me back to the world. I couldn't imagine that I was able to live this morning again. I couldn't envisage how miraculously I had got one more chance to live my life. I wanted to live and thankfully that happened. I was glad and utterly grateful to God for giving me a chance, a second chance to enjoy his creation. It was a great feeling of joy and gratefulness that really can't be pen down by me. Having gathered my senses I found that those angels who gave me another life to live were none other than the coastal lifeguards. I asked them their names. Their names were Remold, Sainubdeen and Nader Shah. I thanked them and hugged them. I really had tears in my eyes. I didn't know what to say but it was just a word thank you that repeatedly poured out of my heart for them. They patted me and appreciated my sense of endurance that I showed inside the sea. They told me that I was so into the vast blue that I was barely visible, and it toughened their job of figuring me out. They told me that about 8–10 people die there every year and they could not believe that a non-swimmer resisted there for so long. I thanked them from all my heart. I owed my life to them. Gurjot, Karni and Vivek all were around me. They were thankful to God and happy that I was back. I too could not believe that I was alive. It was none less than a miracle to me. I had betrayed death.

Laying on the sand with the golden sunlight providing me with the much need warmth, I realized that my mother knew me and thus she warned me several times and I got irritated and aggressive on her every repeated advice. I felt guilty for being rude at those times. I love her. The love of my sister, mother, father, grandfather and grandmother soaked deep into my heart and a drop of tear rolled down my eyes with the thought of them waiting for me at home. The news of any such mishappening would have broken them. I thanked the Almighty and took two important life lessons from this incident in my life. The first being to always listen to one’s parents and to never be aggressive or rude with them as anyone on this earth could not love so selflessly to one than one’s parents. And the second being that the desire to live must never turn weak, it is the thing that makes you strong and stirs you to put that extra muscle to fight against the unavoidable downs of life. I love you mom, and Thank you, your consistent and selfless prayers and blessings have given me a new life and a second birth.

I’ll end up with one of my favourite sayings of Tionne Watkins –

“I want to live. I didn’t have time to die.”