A Nostalgia

Rivers have always fascinated me more than anything else. I remember when I was a little boy I used to swim in the river in our village. Usually after a heavy rain the river that flows across our village would be flooded and the water flowed swiftly and sometimes overflowed to the surrounding areas and we enjoyed the floods so much. The village folks also would come out to see the flood when the rain had stopped and some would bring with them their fish catching gadgetry of some kinds. We boys were enjoying the flood most. We would jump into the river and let the torrent swiftly carried us down along the river and would swim back to the river banks when we reached far end of the river. We would repeat the action again and again until some of us were forced to stop often after being wagged off by our furious parents. Sometime we would dive without hesitation from the nearby bridge into the river and got to the other side of the river bank or let the current carried us downriver. Reckless it seemed, yes we have been inconsiderately reckless about our lives and disobeyed our parents during those years. There were incidents, untold stories about some of us getting almost drowned and of course our parents never got the news. We were afraid to inform them, most of all we were afraid that we might get caned if we told them what had happened as we have been doing things without their consents. There was a place under the bridge where the water flowed quite slowly or almost stagnant but very deep. That was our favorite spot to bath and swim. One day, while a group of us were bathing and swimming in that spot under the bridge one of our friend had difficulty to keep afloat. I saw his hands frantically grasping the water making a big splash everywhere and his head had already submerged under the water. Obviously he was sinking into the deep water. In the mist of all the horrified friends, I swam toward him and dived under the water and pushed him up with all my might toward the river bank. Luckily enough he was able to grasp some of the grass at the river bank and dearly hung to it grasping for breath. I had just saved the life of my friend…but afterward everybody started laughing and jokingly teasing the poor guy who had almost become a victim of drowning that day. So another day had gone without heed of our appreciation.