Can We Go Fishing?

By Amritha Chandrasekhar

In the year 1985, there lived a boy named Suresh in a small town. He was 19 years old studying in a city. He was counting days for coming back to his home town, as he missed his family and his street friends. As soon as he got semester break, he left to his town. He reached his town at 10:30 PM. As soon as he entered the house, he started planning with his brother on where to go the next day. They both decided to go fishing in the nearby island, his mother overheard the conversation and shouted “Hey, don’t plan anything tomorrow. Tomorrow is Diwali, we must do pooja and celebrate.”

“I know amma, we will go early morning and return by afternoon itself. Anyway we will do pooja tomorrow evening only right, obviously we will come back by then.” Suresh replied.

“But still don’t go. Tomorrow is Amavasya(No moon day), the sea will be so rough. It is dangerous.”

“But…” Suresh started, but was interrupted by his mother screaming “I said no.”

Suresh and his brother went to sleep, planning to leave anyways, before their mother wakes up in the morning. They woke up next day early morning at 3:30AM. Silently left the house at 4:00AM packing all the essential things without  making a noise. They then split up to inform and invite others. Suresh went into the house opposite to his, his friend’s room was in the ground floor itself, so he slowly entered the house through his friend’s window and woke Rishi up, Rishi got startled and whispered “Suresh? What are you doing here?”

“Can we go fishing?”

“When?” He asks

“Now.”

“Okay, but wait I will change. Wake my brother up too.” Rishi said yawning. 

“Yeah I will now.” Suresh said, woke Sanjay up and went back to Rishi’s room.

“Who all are coming?” Rishi asked as soon as Suresh entered.

“ We four and your cousins, I sent Ram to call them.”

“Okay cool, it has been really long, since we all went to the island……To the island only right?” Rishi asked a little excited

“Yeah yeah.” Suresh said, helping Rishi pack things.

8 members left to the island on Suresh’s father's towing boat. They all swam for some time, they brought balloon buoys cause apart from Suresh and his brother Ram no one else knew swimming. Ram started fishing on the jetty itself. To catch better fishes, Suresh with 2 others left on the boat a little deeper from the island. Ram, Rishi, Sanjay (Rishi’s brother) and 2 others stayed back, swimming in the sea. It was around 7:00AM, Ram was still fishing,  Rishi was trying to learn swimming with the help of a buoy, Ram noticed that Rishi was going a little deep, so he shouted “Rishi don’t go deep. It’s dangerous, especially in island shore moreover you don’t know swimming, so come back.” While others were swimming near the shore.

Rishi said “Okay,” and tried to change the direction towards the shore. He checked whether the ground was reachable, as he was pretty tall. But to his fear, he couldn’t reach the ground. So he tried to hold the buoy tightly, and by mistake went a little over it. The buoy tilted and he toppled into the water, in fear he came out holding the buoy tightly and called “Ram save me.” 

Ram heard it, shouted “Hold on.” and dived into the water to help him. 

Rishi screamed “It’s a whirlpool, I am getting sucked in. Help me Ram, Ram….” 

Ram almost reached him, one minute he touched Rishi’s fingers and other minute he was gone. Ram was flabbergasted on what happened. He shouted “Rishi, where are you? Rishi…” he went into the water and searched for him. He was nowhere to be found. The others, didn’t know swimming so they could search only till a certain point. Sanjay was terrified, looking for his brother. Others were terrified as well.

After 10 minutes of  Rishi’s disappearance, Suresh and the 2 others came to the shore. They found Ram and others shouting “Rishi, Rishi....”  in the water.

Suresh was confused and asked “What happened?” 

Ram shouted back, “Rishi, he disappeared into the water.”

“What?” Suresh asked, his head slightly spinned in terror. It was Rishi, his classmate, his best friend. Ram explained what happened to Suresh. For 2 minutes straight he couldn’t feel anything, everything got blurred, he wished and prayed god for it to be a real bad dream, his heart beat raised, he felt like he got heavy. His legs couldn’t bare his weight anymore, he just couldn’t. He collapsed in the boat and had a serious panic attack. He couldn’t breath, he felt something that he had never felt in his whole life. He went into some kind of trance, his friends were shouting something, but he couldn’t hear it. Suddenly he came back to his senses and asked again “What?”

Ram and everyone boarded the boat and decided to search for his corpse at least, cause there was no way he could have survived inside the water that long. The boat driver threw the fishing net into the water and drove around the island with the hope to find him. But they had no luck, after 2 hours of complete search. They gave up and decided to go back home to inform the families. Sanjay, Ram and everyone cried continuously until they reached the town, but Suresh he was still in denial. He just couldn’t accept it. He couldn’t come out of the shock.

Everyone rushed to their respective homes and told their parents about it. Suresh and Ram  found their mother immediately, her mother noticing Ram crying and Suresh’s terrified face, asked “Oh my god, what happened?” They explained what happened. Her mother caught her head and shouted hitting them “That’s why I asked you not to go in the first place. Why the hell didn’t you listen to me. Oh god that poor child.” Their father came running to the screaming, their  mother explained what happened, and immediately they both with Suresh and Ram left to Rishi’s house. At Rishi’s house, his parents were sitting on the floor catching their head and crying so hard. 

Everyone else were also there, Rishi’s father said “I heard, I heard some idiot asking my Rishi “Can we go fishing?” I thought it was a dream and neglected it. Who was the idiot that planned this.” 

Suresh was terrified even more, but luckily neither Sanjay nor his cousins ratted Suresh out. As everyone knew that it was an accident and no one can be blamed. The police searched for Rishi’s body whole day but had no luck. After 2 days they found Rishi’s body on the shores of the island, the body was bloated and bitten by dogs. No matter how much Suresh’s mother tried to stop Suresh, Suresh left to the island to see the final riots done in the island, as the body got decayed and they couldn’t get it back to the town. 

After the final riots finished, Suresh returned back to Rishi’s home instead of his home. He was not himself, when Rishi’s family asked about it, he talked like Rishi “What? I live here. Father. I am Rishi. See I am not hurt anymore, I feel super fine.” They were all shocked including Suresh’s parents. Rishi’s mother hugged Suresh and said “Please come back Rishi. I can’t live without you”

“Mother I am back already. What’s wrong with you?” Suresh replied. And then Suresh was taken to an exorcist, later he came back to his senses. Even though he was back to his senses, he couldn’t accept his best friend’s death. After a week, he had to go back to his college, his parents thought he will get better if he goes to his college, so they sent him. He didn’t get any better, he started dreaming about Rishi. It was the same dream every day, Rishi would come and say “See Suresh, I am fine man. Nothing happened to me.”

 One full year, he suffered with the same dream again and again. Whenever Suresh goes out with his college friends and everyone start laughing, his brain went straight to the day, Rishi and others laughing while going to the island on the boat. So he stopped going out or have any kind of fun. Suresh was a body builder, he stopped going to gym too, because when he was in town Rishi and Suresh used to go to the gym together. Every exercise reminded him of Rishi. One day he went to the gym and decided to pursue his work out. When he started working out, unknowingly he started crying. He cried harder that every one in the gym looked at him. He went straight to his room and cried. He cried and talked “I am sorry, I am sorry Rishi. If I listened to my mother and never woke you up that day. You would be alive now. I feel guilty man, I just don’t want to accept me living happily while you being dead. I just can’t take it. Rishi please come back, please, please. It's because of me you are dead. Oh my god you are dead, you are dead……….” Suddenly Rishi’s swollen dead body came to his mind, he then hit himself as hard as possible to get that image out of his brain. He was stopped by his friends. His friends called his parents immediately. The next day his father visited and took him back to his town. 

Suresh’s mother and father tried to uplift his mood. One day his parents encouraged him to go to Rishi’s house, he agreed. To his surprise, he was well received by Rishi’s parents and Sanjay. He just sat in Rishi’s room looking at his things, the things were not touched. It was the same. He then went to Rishi’s parents and confessed that he was the one who planned for fishing that day and asked them to forgive him. To his surprise again, Rishi’s father smiled and said “Child, there is nothing for you to feel guilty about. It was an accident, you just planned it to have fun with your friends. It was a tragedy that no one could have expected. I never blamed you or anyone. You don’t need my forgiveness. But if it makes you feel any better, I forgive you son.” Tears came running out of Suresh’s eyes and he hugged him as tightly as he could and said “Thank you uncle.”

Those assuring words from Rishi’s father somehow freed him from his guilt. He got better later. He never really got over it. But he accepted it. There will forever be a hole in his heart for his best friend, but he learnt to live with it. Even later in his life, he never forgot Rishi or that day, it was a scar, he lived with forever.

Lorem Ipsum

By Amritha Chandrasekhar