Later in the night, I am with some other friends celebrating the return of a friend from the Gulf, for good. I had played a major role in convincing this guy to quit his job there and start a garage of his own in our town - he would be earning less than what he is paid in the Gulf, but he would be happy being with his wife and kids, instead of only seeing them for a month every year on vacation. And life isn't all about money.
The talk veers to the fire-truck and it turns out that it was not about a fire at all. In a freak accident a 2-year old boy had fallen into the Achenkovil river that runs near my place and was missing. The sad thing was that the kid fell into the water, when his mother, cousin and uncle were near him.
The kid's uncle was dropping the group at the river bank at a place called Keecheril Kadavu (kadavu means the place where boats berth to pick up passengers) from where the Mom and kid were to board a boat across the river to her husband's home. While alighting from the bike, the mother hands over the kid to his 15-year old cousin. In a freak turn of events, the kid wriggled out of his cousin's hands and falls into the water. The cousin and mom jump in, though neither of them can swim. The uncle then rushes in and pulls out his sister and the young guy. Meanwhile, the kid has been carried away by the water (the river is in spate due to monsoons at Kerala). If the duo had not jumped in, maybe the uncle would not have had to waste time retrieving them from the water and could have concentrated on saving the kid.
Anyway, the kid is not traceable and hence the call to the fire-station. Meanwhile, the news has spread all over the place & there is a huge crowd where the incident happened. Search continues late into the night, but the kid is still not traceable, inspite of the efforts of the fire-station folks & local divers.
The next day (Sunday) , I have to catch the evening train to Chennai and like we usually do, me / Sheena / Aman ride around the neighborhood and reach the place where the incident happened. There still is some crowd there and couple of police jeeps. The crowd's attention is focussed on a group of young men in an inflatable raft. The men are from the Indian navy and called in from the Naval base at Cochin, some 100kms away. They have diving gear & are taking turns to search for the kid.
Back at Madras, I kept checking with folks at home about the kid and it seems the navy divers were also not able to trace the kid. The kid remained untraced on Monday too. Yesterday, a passer-by saw the body of the kid floating in the river, just 50ms from where he fell in. Looks like he got stuck in the thick grass/shrubs that grew in the river. In the snap below, you can see the shrubs at bottom-left.
It really pains to even think of what the kid would have suffered and more about the parents mourning their loss. Can't imagine how they can cope with this loss and bear this scar all life long. The Mom's a nurse at the local hospital, while the Dad was working in South Africa. They say time is the best healer, but I doubt if the parents would be able to forget this loss all their life.
In hindsight, we could say that a little care would have avoided the tragedy. But they had been doing this journey for years, since the lady works at a hospital across the river. So every day morning she would leave for work from her husband's home, cross the river, leave the kid at her parent's place which is near the hospital and go to work. After work, she would pick up her kid and her brother would drop her at the river bank and she would cross the river.
P.S. : I have been coming to Keecheril Kadavu from the time I was in college, mainly to dig into the hot tea and delicious bonda (a sweet snack) sold by a small shop there - tasted heavenly in the rainy evenings. Later I would come here with Sheena and Aman to watch the river flow by and spend some time with nature.
