Manohar Mukhiya Hanumnagar, Kankalni NP 1, Saptari
“It must have been 9 or 10. I had gone to catch fish with my work partner, Bilichhyan. And after an hour or two of patience in the river, a big fat fish lost itself in our net. It was no less the 40 kilos if my old brain remembers correctly. We somehow managed to carry the fish into the boat but our net got caught in the weed. While my friend was busy holding the fish, I decided to swim down and release the net. Then, I did not know that this decision would change my life. I went down almost 17/18 hands. As I tried to release the net, my feet got stuck in the wire of the levee. I lost control. And somehow the rope of the net also tightened around my neck. I was completely stuck, underwater. I tried to hold my breath but every second felt like an eternity. Back then I could hold my breath up to 3 minutes. In a panic, I chewed on the rope and luckily it snapped. I tried to pull my leg but it was stuck in the wire and every time I applied strength it was painful. It had started bleeding. I do not remember how my leg got released and how I swam to the surface. Bilichhyan looked at me puzzled to see me come out breathless. But he did not know what had happened. He did not know that I had almost lost my life under water. The wound took 45 days to heal and I decided I was not going back to catch fish again, no matter how big the fishes were. When I miss being in the water, I take the boat out in the evenings. As I look at the vast expanse of water, I think of the lives that are lost here. Many accidents happen here. I am amongst the first one to respond in such situations. I have saved a few lives. The police here wanted to give me cash for the lives I had saved but I declined. I did not do good for the money. There is no bigger happiness than in saving another human’s life.”
