Near Death Experience-drowned in a village Pond

My late father, a proud employee of the Indian Railways since the 1950s was a man of quiet authority and unquestionable command. A native of a small village in Odisha, he found himself translocated to a railway town in West Bengal, where life took a different pace—and so did ours.

For my younger sister and me (she being seven years my junior), our so-called “vacations” were less of a family outing and more of a royal decree. There was no democratic process, no consultation. My father didn’t make requests. He passed judgments—non-negotiable.

“We are going to the village,” he would declare, not as a suggestion but as an ordinance. A pink-coloured Second Class Cheque Pass would soon appear like a royal scroll, sealing our fate. The “we” in his proclamation—my mother, sister, and I—were mere loyal subjects expected to fall in line.

And so we did.

What made it worse—or perhaps more memorable—was the village itself. Scanty in transportation, low in infrastructure, and high in unpredictability. There were no buses on time, no trains in sight, and no return date confirmed. What started as a 10-day getaway would often morph into a month-long exile, occasionally stretching to three whole months. I remember one such “extended vacation” that nearly cost me my school admission. I received a stern warning of expulsion from the Principal of Christopher Day School for being AWOL too long. (My sister, meanwhile, was just a baby of three or four.)

But to my father, none of that mattered. He loved his roots. For him, these visits weren’t disruptions—they were returns to the soil, to simplicity, to something eternal.

The Drowning That Brought Me to Life

those vacations did have their own hidden magic. Sure, they felt like forced exile from the comforts of my urban routine and, more importantly, from my studies. But -who wouldn’t welcome a break from the terror of wooden-scale-wielding teachers who turned our palms crimson as part of daily learning?

The village, for all its remoteness, had its charms. My grandmother’s warm presence, my paternal aunts bustling about, my ever-jovial uncle, and vast stretches of farmland stretching into the horizon. Mango orchards ripe with scent and anticipation. Bullocks lazily chewing cud. The cows, the fresh air, and food straight from the earth. It was a world away from school bells and homework.

But the most irresistible attraction for me was the village pond.

I didn’t know how to swim then—and if I’m honest, I still don’t—but something about that pond pulled me in. Maybe it was the allure of the green water, the freedom it represented, or just the innocent rebellion of doing something no one had permitted. One afternoon, when the sun stood high and everyone else was resting, I quietly slipped away around 12 or 1 o’clock and made my way to that pond.

What started as a fantasy of swimming quickly turned into a silent nightmare.

I had barely entered the deeper part when I realized I was sinking. The water didn’t welcome me—it swallowed me. I couldn’t shout. I couldn’t struggle. I simply began to drown. No drama. No screaming. Just that eerie weightlessness of being pulled down, the world above dimming like a curtain closing.

And then, grace appeared—grace in the form of a village cowherd.

He was swimming nearby, probably used to the pond in ways I’d never understand. He spotted my flailing or maybe sensed the stillness where movement should have been. With no hesitation, he swam over and pulled me out. I didn’t even have the strength to panic by then—I was halfway surrendered to the green silence. But he brought me back.

That nameless cowherd, that guardian angel in disguise, gave me back what I was about to lose.

Had he not been there, you wouldn’t be reading this now—I wouldn’t be writing it. My story would’ve ended in a pond, beneath a sky too indifferent to notice.

But life had other plans.

And now, when I think of those village vacations—the commands and, the extended stays —I afford to smile. Because one of them nearly ended me… but also defined me. It gave me the closest brush with death I’d ever had, and in doing so, made me feel more alive than ever before.