It was like any other weekend during my childhood. We as a family including my uncle, aunt and cousins visit the beach in nearby coastal town at least couple of times a month. This time we had more cousins this particular week, who were visiting us on the weekend. We also had a camcorder (which used to be a novelty) with us and were recording the beach moments.
The beach was crowded than normal and it had the mix of locals and tourists from near by towns. Bathing in sea is something we all love. And like usual we were playing in the beach, jumping waves and whatnot. This particular beach is known to have lot of rocks by the shore. Hence waves would rise above normal height easily. These waves also get split into two or three short waves while bursting towards the sea.
We had been there playing in the waves for around 2 hours before we found that the camcorder that we had brought was sitting idle. Now a cousin of ours who didn't jump into the sea to bath took it and started recording us. On seeing here recording we decided to spend some more time in the water. And now we started going a little inside the sea to areas where the depth is easily more than 10 feet easily. Although the depth wasn't that much the waves was making it harder to stay for long there. After few minutes of recording everyone started swimming towards the shore and tried to get out of the sea.
That is when I started to notice that I wasn't able to swim to the shore. Although I know how to swim, I should rate myself as the least qualified swimmer of my family (out of the ones who knows swimming). I was also wearing a tracks which was layered and sea sand had gotten into the pants and was also dragging me in due to the added weight. I tried swimming and would move couple of feet before a dying wave (the wave which returns to the sea from the shore) would pull me back to the same place where I started.
Now I decided to ask for help and started waving my hands and screaming for help. My cousins who were swimming back heard me and came back to pull me out from where I was. But the wave was persistent. Also the place I was floating was just next to a rock, this made things difficult for them as well. My cousin who was recording the whole time was thinking that I was waving at the camera to get her attention to shoot me and started waving her hand back. People in the beach also had no idea about what was happening.
Finally my cousins gave up and swam to the beach, but there I was floating around tired. Once my cousins reached the beach, things became clearer for my family members and they started worrying. But they are far away and couldn't hear a thing what I was shouting or screaming for help. If I recall correctly, there were few people in the crowd who might have understood the situation but no one reacted at that point. Had the locals in the beach had known, may be they would have come for rescue, but no one knew that I was stuck there.
After few minutes of struggle, I had decided to give up. It is a moment that still resonates in my mind till this day. Most of my lives memories came as a flash and I remember touching the ocean floor and everything becoming dark. The next second I was battered by a wave and was thrown to the shore. Yes, the wave took me the shore automatically and he was me kneeling down on the beach. Some of my family members came running down towards me and gave me some energy drinks or water. My mom wasn't at the beach that day. My aunt was asking me what they would have done if things had gotten worse. I tried to explain them how I was stuck and how I came back finally. But no one knew what I saw in the last split second. Those seconds felt like final moments of my life. But I was lucky or let's say blessed that day to win death.
The funny thing is that, this is not the last time I would get stuck on the sea. It happened again on the same town but in a different place. I jumped from a boat and midway towards swimming to the beach, screamed for help 😂
A Day in 2000's
Muttom, India
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