A bridge to balance on

As  was the practice, we, six children, three boys and four girls, were taken to our mother’s home, located in a village, about 12 kms away from our house during every summer school vacation by our maternal uncle. On one side, flew an irrigation  canal, which was active throughout the year, except rainy season. We looked forward to afternoons, when we were permitted to take bath in the canal, though the fact remained that we used to be in the canal for most of the time. Four feet was the maximum depth of the canal, but it was sufficient to make one drown, resulting into death. It was not quite wide, but wide enough that if any one, below four foot of height was caught in mid-canal, and if he does not know swimming,could have a changed status from ‘live’ to ‘dead’.  As the canal formed one of the boundaries, we could play any sort of water-games, as loudly as we wished without disturbing others and without getting disturbed.  That was one nice time or pastime we enjoyed in our lives until.....

Until one day, without the notice and permission of our grand mother,  my eldest sister went to take bath in the canal, taking me along with her. As she was the eldest  amongst us  and no one to be feared of, she probably wanted to test the depth and there she was caught in the current of the mid-canal,  going upside down, playing rock and roll, rolling down and down  before I could have done anything to save her. My sister was whitish, but within no time, her colour changed as red as a tomato; at that time, I did not know why? As I did not know  swimming and as I was also quite  younger to her, all that I could do was that I  ran along, ran as fast as I could, on the boundary of the canal, shouting for help, but who is there to listen; practically no one. In the meantime, my eldest sister continued her first ever rock and roll  exercise in mid-water current, unable to get hold of anything that grew on the side of the canal. As she was bounced or tossed up and down in the water, too frequently, it helped her breathe air that helped her survive for sometime. I was a small boy of the age of eight years and believed I could run faster than anyone amongst us. I wish if I could run as fast as I ran then, surely I would have been there in Olympics, representing India. But, I could never run as fast as I did then, later when I grew up. Perhaps, there was no one to be saved! Going little further down the canal, it took a sharp turn, where an  arecanut  plant stem was kept across the canal, to help people knowing the art of balancing themselves  cross it.  As the arecanut stem was kept very low, just one feet above the water level, it generally did not pose any threat to things passing under it. There was no time to think. There was only little time to act. On one side, the fear of falling down to the canal if tried to walk on the arecanut bridge and on the other if I did not do anything immediately, my sister, within no time, would pass under the bridge, unable to catch hold of the arecanut bridge. And that would have untold consequences to remember forever.  In fact, I wanted to walk with balancing act on the bridge, but somehow, I got slipped off and fell straight on it. In my effort to save myself, being my priority now, I caught on the arecanut stem bridge tightly, both my legs falling down, unsteady, touching the  water down, seeing right ahead my sister coming up and going down in water. To my surprise or an act of God(I vote for the second option), there my sister lay down, holding my legs tightly, her entire body almost up in the water and I do not know how long we lay there, though I started experiencing that my fist gets loosened. There to our good luck, my mother’s elder sister, a deaf and dumb, was returning from the field, and on her way back home, she had to cross the arecanut bridge. Having seen us both crying, as if we were being buried alive, she jumped into the canal  without a second thought, saving us from an otherwise sure drowning death.