Never Underestimate Others

This week I am going to share one of my personal stories highlighting why we should stop following others blindly and why it is dangerous to overestimate ourselves at the cost of underestimating others. Often times we fail to realize that people know more than they say and think more than they speak. 

Nagarjuna University is located on NH45 near Namburu village, in the northern part of Guntur City, a major center of learning for the state of Andhra Pradesh. It is one of several major universities in the country, covering many colleges and institutes of districts in the Andhra region.

I did my first Masters in Physics (M.Sc.) from this university between 1997-1999. During the first year of the course, I used to commute daily from my village which is 55 km from University and attend classes. This is because hostel admission was given only to 2nd years and students of 1st year hailing from other districts. I have appeared for the final examination at the end of the 1st academic year and topped the class. I have received Prof C.R.K Murthy Memorial Trust scholarship as the topper of the batch. 

One of my classmate's named Annappa is very competitive in nature and was actually expecting himself to be the topper of the class. But after 1st-year M.Sc. results were announced he was pretty disappointed to see his name as 3rd in the list next to me and a girl named Jyotsna. However, he has a strong belief on his own talent and was never ready to accept the fact that I and one more girl have secured more marks than him. However, he is a great friend and such a sweet person to hangout out with. We can trust him with anything.

During the 2nd year, 7 boys of our batch have got admission into University hostel. Most of our classmates ended up developing a strong bond of friendship. We used to play cricket after college hours in the university playground followed by a long walk to a canteen on the national highway via girls hostel to eat rotis. More or less this was almost like a daily routine for us during weekdays. After many months of staying together in the hostel, we have planned to visit Nagarjuna Sagar dam and Ethipothala water Falls. All of us agreed to meet on a Friday afternoon in the university hostel to have some good time before we start our journey later that night. The spirits were high and everyone gathered in the hostel for the evening snacks time and later met in one room and started having a fun time.

One of our classmate named Rangarao is a very good swimmer. He has a strong physique but and a bald head. All classmates fondly used to call him Grandpa. He proposed to swim in Krishna canal which is passing right next to college compound and adjacent to Nambur village to which everyone agreed. There is a bridge on this canal near Nambur village. If we go to the edge of the canal and look down we feel like water is going at the bottom of the canal, but the fact of the matter is that It is a deep water canal. You wouldn't realize the depth of the canal until you set foot inside the canal. In addition to this, the canal has a proper cement layer all the way from one edge through the bottom to the next edge. What it means is that the depth of the canal is uniform right from the edge to the center.

I, Annappa & Murali were interested in swimming walked up to the canal along with Rangarao. As soon as we reached the canal Rangarao jumped into the canal and started swimming from one end to the other end of the canal. Since the water flow is so strong he ended up reaching the other side of the bank150 ft away diagonally. After reaching the other bank, he settled on the edge to catch up with his breath. He shouted at me, Annappa and Murali who is on the other side saying the water flow is so strong and don’t jump unless we know swimming.

Rangarao got up and walked upstream along the edge of the canal and jumped inside so that he can reach the other bank where we are currently sitting. He reached within no time and warned all of us again to think twice before jumping into the canal. No one took his advice seriously. After 5 mins Rangarao jumped again followed by Murali and me.

I know a little bit of swimming and had the experience of swimming in our village canals which are small in nature and nowhere in comparison with what we are seeing here. I could see Rangarao and Murali swimming effortlessly in front of me and I was finding it a bit difficult to swim and upon reaching the middle of the canal I had a feeling that I am swimming on the top of a huge water body. I started getting nervousness yet slowly managed to swim towards the opposite side. After a while, I heard a big sound of water splash behind me and realized that Annappa followed us and jumped into the canal.

As I see Rangarao reached the other side and so is Murali and I are still on our way to the other side of the canal. Annappa doesn't know that I am a decent swimmer and used to swim for many years in our village canals. I reached the other side safely and sat down on the edge of the canal with a great sense of accomplishment after realizing the speed of flow of water and depth of the canal. 

Annappa managed to swim little short of the center of the canal and started drowning and shouting loudly for help. Immediately Rangarao jumped back into the canal and trying hard to reach him, however, Rangarao is going downstream because of the speed of the water. Murali ran few meters upstream intelligently on the other side and jumped so that he can reach Annappa quickly. However, I do not have the courage to jump back into the canal and immediately climbed to the top of the canal edge and saw a lady standing next to canal looking after her cattle eating grass. I ran to her after realizing that she is holding a lengthy stick to look after her cattle. I literally snatched a big stick from her hands and ran back to the edge of the canal. Meanwhile, Murali managed reached Annappa.

I could now clearly see both Murali and Annappa are in danger. Both are almost drowning because Annappa is holding Murali’s neck tightly and is not allowing him to swim in a state of panic. Somehow Murali released himself from Annappa but reluctant to swim back to the edge of the canal as he is determined to save Annappa. Meanwhile, I took the support of grass on the edge of the canal and helped Murali to catch the other end of the stick and once he had a hold on the other end of the stick he managed to drag Annappa towards him. To cut the long story short we all survived and thanked the lady carrying the stick with her. She seemed like an angel to all of us and we do not have the courage to swim across the canal hence we decided to walk 3 Km with our underwear's on to cross the bridge and reach the other end of the canal behind our university.

Meanwhile, a few other classmates - Narsi, Michael and Punnaiah reached the spot. Someone asked Annapa what made him jump that bravely in spite of the fact that he is not a good swimmer. Everyone was shocked to hear his statement. He said until this date he had a strong feeling that if Kishore can do something then he too can do it. We were shell shocked with his answer and later all of us walked out of the place with few life-changing thoughts. Later Annappa got high-fever and went home and others went to weekend picnic as planned after much deliberations on whether to go ahead with the plan or not.

Learnings:

• Stop Blindly following other people
• Focus on who you are and know where you are going
• Do not overestimate yourself at the cost of underestimating others
• Often times people know more than they say and think more than they speak.