An expansive bathing ghat at Desham near the famed Aluva Manappuram in Ernakulam district has been reverberating with the hubbub of a swimming camp for seven months in a year without fail for the last one-and-a-half decades.
Behind the camp is Saji Valasseril, 59, who has been giving swimming lessons for a nominal fee to people of all age groups driven by the motto that drowning should never cut short a precious life. The camp run between November and May has witnessed a record turnout of 2,500 applicants, more than half of which were school students, during this summer.
“We had conducted a one-day awareness campaign on swimming in schools across the Aluva education district earlier this year. Our volunteers split into 12 groups and visited 110 schools reaching out to about 60,000 students. The impact of that campaign has reflected in the high number of applicants this year,” said Mr. Valasseril.
In the last 15 years, the camp has taught swimming to 10,300 people. The camp is split into multiple batches depending on the number of participants. The training starts at 5.10 a.m. every day and the regular coaching ends at around 8 a.m. The next hour is dedicated to participants who have set the goal of a swim across river Periyar.
“Usually, it takes around 16 days for a person aged between 12 and 30 years to learn swimming. But those looking to swim across Periyar will have to train for at least 50 days. So far, 147 persons have achieved it this year. Many of my students saved lives during the 2018 deluge,” said Mr. Valasseril.
Voluntary service
“Those who swim across the river will have to commit two months of voluntary service in conducting swimming lessons. They will be deployed mostly for ensuring the safety of the participants across 60 points,” said Mr. Valasseril.
The training is conducted based on a five-point syllabus. It starts with floating, kicking, swimming with head immersed in water, mastering breathing and then swimming with the head lifting off the water in regular intervals to breath in. “But the most important lesson is to stay afloat on the surface of water for hours without movement by padding legs and hands. This helps in situations like boat capsize in the middle of a large water body,” said Mr. Valasseril.
Participants are charged a paltry monthly fee of ₹100, which is used to meet the expenses of ensuring safety, including the deployment of a fully-equipped ambulance and two country boats with a watcher each for lookout. An 18-member committee made of participants are constituted at the start of the camp for overseeing the safety measures.
Mr. Valasseril, who is into furniture business, learned swimming at a very young age thanks to his father who was an expert swimmer and a soldier attached to the Madras Regiment. One of his prized possessions is a trophy won by his father during a competition organised by the regiment in 1946.
