The entire world seemed to hold its breath in astonishment for those few fleeting moments. In the middle of the Bhagirathi River, the current itself appeared to pause.
A muffled, choked sob rose from beneath the cold, suffocating waters. Bittoo screamed, "Maa Rani is drowning!"
Everyone saw it.
Every eye remained frozen wide in horror. While the adults stood paralyzed in silence, ten-year-old Arjun leaped into the surging river without a second thought to save her.
She was drowning, and everyone was watching. What the grown-ups should have done, a small boy of ten or eleven had done instead.
Arjun did not pause to think. He simply plunged into the river for Rani.
Ram Nath Chacha shouted desperately at Bittoo, "Bittoo! Stop, you mad boy! Stop right there! What madness is this!"
Even as he yelled, Ram Nath Chacha jumped into the water after him. Together, their combined efforts succeeded in dragging Rani to the safety of the riverbank.
While she was sinking, everyone had simply stood and watched. In those brief moments, she had swallowed several mouthfuls of water, and her body had begun to go limp.
When Rani rose to the surface for the third time, Bittoo's small hands shot out and gripped her wrist tightly.
The moment Bittoo leaped into the river, Ram Nath Chacha's heart lurched with fear. For a split second, he could not comprehend what had happened. The next instant, without any hesitation, he too plunged into the icy, fast-flowing water. The freezing current slammed against his body like a physical blow, yet he pushed forward with all his strength.
Rani clung desperately to Bittoo's wrist. She did not know how to swim. Her limbs had grown weak, and the powerful current was dragging both children downstream. Ram Nath Chacha lunged forward and seized Bittoo's wrist in a firm grip. Bittoo could swim, but the force of the river made rescue nearly impossible. Still, Chacha refused to give up.
The people on the bank, now frantic, threw a rope. Ram Nath Chacha held Bittoo with one hand while stretching desperately with the other to reach the rope. Waves kept pushing them under, but each time he fought his way back to the surface. Finally, the rope came within his grasp. He first secured the children to it, then tied himself. Those on the shore pulled with all their might. Moments later, the three of them emerged onto the bank—drenched, shivering, but alive.
Bittoo burst into tears and flung himself into the arms of both Rani and Ram Nath Chacha. Chacha's chest heaved with exhaustion, yet his eyes shone with quiet satisfaction. He had saved two innocent young lives through sheer determination and courage.
Rani did not know how to swim. In her panic underwater, she had swallowed several gulps of river water. They had to turn her upside down and press on her stomach to force the water out of her lungs. After long, anxious minutes, her breathing finally returned and her fragile little life was pulled back from the brink.
But when ten-year-old Rani learned the devastating truth—that her own father, the man she trusted most in the world, had tried to drown her—her eyes filled with tears. Arjun had not hesitated for even a moment. He had simply jumped into the river to save Rani.
Ram Nath Chacha had shouted at Bittoo in that frantic moment, "Bittoo! Stop, you fool! What madness has gotten into you!" Yet he too had leaped into the water after the boy. Working together, the two of them had pulled Rani safely to the shore.
Her mother, trembling with rage, screamed at Arjun, "You would give your life for her?
When even her own father is determined to kill her!"There was no stopping him. The river's icy bite cut straight into his lungs, but all he could see was that Rani must be saved.
When Rani had surfaced for the second time, she had already accepted that she would not survive.
On the third rise, Arjun swam swiftly toward her and caught her hand.
He shouted, "Rani, don't let go!""Rani! Open your eyes! Why aren't you speaking!"
Her face had turned blue, her lips trembled, and her body hung limp—like a tiny bird fallen from its nest in the middle of a storm.
That day, Rani clung to Arjun and wept as if death itself were embracing life. Arjun held her tightly, as though this were their last embrace, mending the broken pieces of her heart with his own.
The mother and Bittoo, seated in the ferry, remained utterly silent until they reached the shore. For the first time, the mother had pulled Arjun close and slapped him hard across the face, leaving the clear imprint of her five fingers on his cheek.
Panting, Arjun had said, "If something had happened to Rani…"Hearing those words, his mother had drawn him into the shelter of her anchal and begun to cry. "
"And if something had happened to you?
Then I too would not have gone home. I would have jumped into the Bhagirathi with Bittoo right behind me."
That day, her anguished cry had risen like a roar across the river. For the first time, the unspoken love between them had broken its long silence.
Trembling with fury, Arjun had turned to Rani's father and said, "You are her father—how could you do such a thing to her?"
That day, in front of everyone, love had found its voice for the first time. It was the pure love of childhood, its very first awakening.
News of the incident spread like wildfire. When Rani's mother learned of it, she too felt deep sorrow, yet she remained silent and detached in her response.
In small towns, such stories travel with the speed of flames. In Navadwip too, everyone soon heard whispers of what had happened. Such things, after all, cannot remain hidden.
"Some bonds and the feelings they carry have no substitute.""The deeper the attachment to someone, the greater the distance that eventually grows between you."
"Why does fate play such cruel games, Mother?
If we were only meant to be separated, why bring us together at all?
And if we were brought together, why must we be torn apart?"
© Copyright Pushpa Chaturvedi
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