Salvation by the sea

At 3 pm on July 17 Sandesh Mistry gets a call from a friend working at the BandraWorli Sea Link toll booth informing him that he has just seen someone jump off the bridge and into the rough Arabian Sea belowMistry 23 who has grown up in Bandra Koliwada happens to be nearby sitting below Bandra Fort with his friends from the Kadheshwari Fishermen Sahakari Sanstha Maryadith KFSSM group From the shore they scan the ocean to try and spot the jumper Bhavesh Seth a businessman from Ghatkopar There was no sign of him in the swelling tideldquoThe tide was too high for us to even see him Itrsquos hard to go and rescue anyone at such times all we could do was wait until his body came closer to shorerdquo says Mistry who was one of the five who finally retrieved Sethrsquos body around 7 pmAkash Khapne from left Sandesh Mistry Anwar Ali and Robin Willam were four out of the five who retrieved the body of Bhavesh Seth the bussinessman who jumped off the BandraWorli Sea Link on July 17 PicKirti Surve ParadeldquoThe waves might not look like much from the shore definitely not from the bridge but the fury is genuine Mumbairsquos residents might take it for granted because they think they live near the sea but they donrsquot truly live by the sea nor do they know itrdquo he addsOnce the body was spotted Robin Edwin Williams Anwar Shaukat Ali and Raju Singh dive in and bring it to the shore ldquoHe Seth was floating and he had been in the sea for almost four hours so we knew it would impossible for him to surviverdquo says WilliamsldquoI have fished bodies out from here since I was a kid itrsquos just second nature to us nowrdquo he adds as we walk towards the machhimar communityrsquos settlement on the rocky shore where nonresidents are often shooed away with no pretense at politeness This the locals inform us is for the ldquopublicrsquos goodrdquo since there have been too many accidental drownings when untrained tourists come to satiate their wanderlustD Bunty RaoThe attraction is understandable Behind the fishermen the sea link looms largemdashan infrastructural marvel that has drawn scores of tourists every year since its opening in 2009 However for the machhimar community that is also the year when the Grim Reaper moved in Following its opening the sea link became a notorious suicide point forcing the authorities to place CCTV cameras as well as guards along the bridgeAt the newer Atal Setu bridge too there have been two deaths by suicide in the seven months since its launch In the past fortnight alone there have been four such suicides by drowning in the citymdashone each at the sea link Atal Setu Marine Drive and the Gateway of India There are also victims who are swept away by swollen waves during the monsoonldquoWe end up rescuing at least two people per month During the monsoon this number just spikes to as much as one rescue per dayrdquo says AliPrem Ramesh SoshteAkash Khapne 23 lets us in on an unsaid rule of the machhimar community for retrieval of drowning victimsmdashnever put the body on the boat No machhmar likes a body to be close to their boat fearing the boat might ldquocatchrdquo death tooSuch is the stigma and fear around such incidents that the group has yet to inform their friend whose boat they had taken out on that fateful Wednesday to get to the spot where the body was floatingldquoShe the boat is our Laxmi You do not put a dead body on her We usually put the body on to a raft that is attached to the boat But this time the place where we found it Sethrsquos body was very rocky and steep so we tied a rope to the body directly and pulled it ashorerdquo he saysKhapne and Mistry both tie ropes to their waists and attach the other end to each leg on Sethrsquos body They swim to the shore pulling the body through the waves taking it up the jagged rocks on the shore until they reach even ground and lay the corpse down less than 500 m from where the last of the communityrsquos homes endThe community is also kept busy with accidental drowning cases As per the National Crime Records Bureau report released last year as many as 4728 people died by drowning in Maharashtra alone in 2022 putting the state second only to Madhya Pradesh 5427 drowningsBandstand and its extended shores see many such cases Prem Ramesh Soshte the treasurer of KFSSM is well into his 40s but was one the many fishermen who rescued Mukesh Sonar who along with his wife Jyoti and two kids had climbed on to the tetrapods along the shore to take a selfie back in July 2023 Jyoti was swept away by the waves and videos of the incident had gone viralSoshte mentioned that the couple had been chased away earlier by a local fisherman but the husband and wife sneaked back later ldquoWhen the waves crashed against them we began to yell at the parents The two children were closer to the shore and someone hoisted them to safetyrdquo he recallsldquoThe husband had managed to hold on to a rock so we formed a chain and pulled him outrdquo says Soshte adding ldquoWe donrsquot jump in blindly either because on a few occasions fishermen have died while rescuing peoplerdquoLike most fishermen Soshte has been part of so many rescue or body retrieval efforts that when asked about an October 2021 case in which Gujarat High Court lawyer Bhavesh Shah had jumped off the sea link Soshte couldnrsquot recollect the victimrsquos name off the cuff He requests the details from Mistry who documents each rescue via videos and photographs and maintains a listmdashan exchange that is telling of the frequency of such tragediesThe list has a second purpose apart from recordkeeping ldquoThe police do not know how to do water rescues and armtwist us to do it We have long been asking for jobs as lifeguards and every time we do they ask us for evidencerdquo says SoshteldquoThe truth is that no one can swim in Mumbairsquos waters like a machhimar We have a healthy respect for the sea Our kids learn to swim at the same time they learn to walk The sea is a playmate we grow up withmdashwe learn when to leave this friend alone and when to ask for a riderdquo he addsIN the monsoon of 1999 an 11yearold orphan D Bunty Rao had run away from his home in Jharkhand and landed up at Juhu beach ldquoJuhu gave me a livelihood at a gola shop at the age of 11 as well as a place to rest That same year I rescued a kid who had gone too far into the water After that I never looked backrdquo he recalls Now 36 Rao is a member of the Baywatch Lifeguard AssociationLifeguard training takes place over a span of three months and ends with tests to check stamina speed as well as the candidatersquos presence of mind If any qualities are found lacking ldquoyou never make it out of the swimming pool to the seardquo says RaoApart from 20 civil defence forcestrained swimmers the association has also trained locals like the coconut and gola sellers to be the first respondents when things go awry at the beachRao has rescued people in all kinds of cases ranging from suicide attempts to those who get swept away by the waves The most important thing is to stay calm and not get pulled under by panicking swimmers ldquoIn 2013 three kids had ended up in deep waters I caught hold of one child and asked them to all hold on to each other in a chain as I pulled them out slowlyrdquo he saysldquoThere are thousands I have saved The police keep asking me for proof but I donrsquot keep count Who hands back a drowning child to their mother and then asks them to go to the police station or take a video I am fine with helping Juhursquos water gave me the gift of life this is how I work off the debtrdquo he chuckles2Avg no of rescues the community does every month4No of suicides by drowning in Mumbai in last fortnight