When the Tejasvi river in Kannur breached banks and swelled on Saturday, Rajesh, a seasoned swimmer from Thiruvananthapuram, knew he had a task at hand. He had already pulled a dozen people to safety when he heard the cry of a man stranded and in desperate need of help.
He instinctively dived in, not knowing it would be his final mission. While Rajesh led the man to safety, he was swept away by the current. His body was found on Tuesday.
Rajesh was passionate about adventure sports and had been working at a river rafting unit along the Tejasvi River in Kannur. As torrential rains battered the village, water levels began to rise rapidly, and there wasn’t enough time for emergency responders to step in. Putting his skills to good use, Rajesh pitched in to help, using ropes to swim across the river and bring stranded villagers back to the mainland.
“A man who was trapped on a low-lying island called out for help. So he used the ropes to swim to the man. Once Rajesh reached him, he took off the life jacket he had been wearing and handed it to the man,” said Dinil, a relative of Rajesh. Clinging to the ropes, the two men slowly made their way through the raging river. However, a sudden gush of water, suspected to have originated from a nearby landslide, swept Rajesh away. “He gave away his own life jacket because he knew how to swim, but the man didn’t,” Dinil said.
“He had been doing this for 15 years.” Dinil wasn’t just speaking about swimming or adventure sports. Rajesh had undertaken rescue operations whenever he could. His stellar record was proof of that. “You know, during the 2018 floods in Kerala, he saved 114 lives. He also took part in rescue operations during the 2024 Wayanad landslides,” Dinil recalled.
Back home, Rajesh ran an adventure centre called ADMS. But according to his relatives, it was just one part of his broader desire to help others through charitable work. “He spent a lot of time doing charity work, all out of his own pocket, and the adventure centre was just part of that,” Dinil said.
After dealing with the immense loss of her husband’s life, Rajesh’s wife, Lakshmi, is now left to cope with the loans they had taken to build their home. “He helped everyone. Now who will help his wife and kids?” Dinil asked. Having been a housewife, Lakshmi has limited means to repay the loans, he added. The family hopes that government intervention would help secure their future.
Those around him remember his courage and commitment to saving lives. “If the person who was drowning had been anyone else, he would have jumped in to save them. But since it was him, there was no one to save him. In fact, no one was as skilled as he was to save him,” Dinil said.
His body was recovered around noon on Tuesday after the water began to recede. “The island where he was found had been submerged the previous day. It was only after the water level dropped that we were able to find him,” a Fire and Rescue official at the Peringome Fire and Rescue Station said.
The body has been handed over to the relatives. The funeral will be held at 11 am in Thiruvananthapuram.
