Attending practice sessions won’t be the same for 17-year-old Suresh Kumar anymore. Squeezed between Arjun Sharma and Rahul Mishra on a scooter, he used to reach the football field every morning, endure drills together and loiter with them after school.
Even on Friday morning, Suresh, a former under-14 Indian team captain, refused to abandon the clique, but for a different reason. Attending the Ganesh idol immersion a fifth time, he was more fired up for the two, who were thrilled at the opportunity to sit in a boat and topple the idol, both the first time.
“As soon we pushed the idol, our boat capsized and I saw the two pulled under,” said Suresh.
The 18-foot idol toppled sideways, sinking one of the country boats that were joined to carry it on a plank set across. While 11 youths drowned in the incident in the Lower Lake of Bhopal, Suresh and five others were rescued by a fisherman.
Cheating death
“One of the drowning youths, gasping and struggling, climbed over me to stay afloat. I thought I was gone,” he said.
Throwing his feet wildly until his shoes came off, Suresh managed to stay afloat by kicking under to push himself up, until a fisherman rowed in, and he remained clinging to the boat’s edge till it reached the ghat.
“Though Rahul, 18, was a good defender, I was sure Arjun would have played Nationals this year,” says Rizwan Rehman, coach at the Kamla Devi Public School, where the three studied.
Happier times
Flashing a photograph taken with Arjun at the Bhopal Railway station, Suresh said, “This was when we were leaving for trials at the Gokulam Football Academy in Kerala. Both of us were selected and waiting for call letters. We assured Rahul we would make a place for him there, too.” Arjun had earlier trained at the academy of Minerva FC in Chandigarh, and won the State Championship in August, with Suresh, representing Bhopal district.
Called ‘Thambi’ for his Tamil roots, Suresh has in the past trained with them during summer camps at the BHEL (Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited) ground. This year, the two took admission in Class XI of the school, where Suresh is a year junior.
Besides helming the national team for a tournament in Indonesia in 2014, Suresh has played at the State-level six times, the national five times, and is the only player from the State to represent it and the district for three consecutive years.
After the incident, as his mother, A. Chitra, frantically called him without getting through, she was almost sure he had met the same fate.
‘He called us’
“Then, at 8 a.m., he called us. We rushed to the Hamidia Hospital,” she said. “He was shivering with fever. We hugged and cried.”
Before being out of work for three months now, Ms. Chitra, a native of Salem district in Tamil Nadu, worked as an electrician for a contractor at BHEL. Along with her nephew, a cricket coach, and Suresh, she stays a one-room hut in the 100-Quarters slum of Pilpani here.
Pointing to a pale Suresh lying dejectedly in bed, she says,”He has not got up for two days. The night before it happened was his 17th birthday. Now, he will remember it as the day he lost his two friends.”
In order to cope with the trauma, said Rahul Pillai, his cousin, the family was looking for a counsellor for Suresh.
