pregnant woman

She hadn’t undergone any strength-training programmes nor was she fed any special diet. She had never heard any motivational speeches either. But when the time came to take the plunge, this nine-month, who had never swam in her entire life, dived into the choppy waters of the Krishna river. For nearly 90 minutes, she battled the surging river till she reached the nearest village with a hospital.Twenty-two-year-old Yellavva’s journey to escape her flooded island-village not only speaks of her grit and determination but also turns the spotlight on the scores of village islands in North Karnataka that bear the brunt of the river each monsoon.“This is my first baby and my love for it is enormous. Though there are rustic pregnancy-care and delivery practices in the village, I yearned to reach the nearest hospital in time. But as the water levels started rising menacingly and no boatman was ready to take me across, I got desperate and chose to swim as the baby is due to arrive any time,” said Yellava when Bangalore Mirror contacted her over phone after a regional daily reported her daring act.A resident of Neelakantarayanagadde in Yadgir district’s Surapur taluk, Yellavva’s pregnancy was marked more with the fear of rising river levels than the anxiety about childbirth itself. “The nearest hospital is at Kekkera (four km from her village) and we have to cross the river to reach it,” said Yellavva. While it is common for villagers to either wade through the waist-deep waters or sail on a raft if the levels rise, nobody would dare risk crossing it during monsoon as the currents are strong and the river could even form a high wall of up to 12-15 feet. But Yellava had no choice. “I had been telling my parents it would be prudent to cross the river before it rose, but they kept postponing.”Yellavva was the second wife of 30-year-old daily wage labourer Gaddi Balappa. Detested by her husband, she had only her family members to bank on after she conceived.Afraid of the consequences of living on an island during monsoon, she kept telling her father and brothers to shift her to the mainland. But the poverty-stricken family probably had life’s more pressing matters to attend to until Wednesday when the Krishna swelled like never before after excess water from Basava Sagara reservoir, 10-km upstream, was let into the river. By then, the situation had gone out of hand and it was inevitable that Yellavva and her family would have to enter the swirling waters for the sake of the baby.“I even yelled at my father and others for arguing it would never rain as there was drought all around.” I told them to look at the river now, but my father just asked me to jump in.“I don’t know how to swim. Whenever we went to the river to wash clothes, we used to flap our hands and limbs. Even when I was about to plunge in, I protested. Praying to gods I jumped into the river only to fall back. It was so cold and suffocating, even at that hour; it was 10 am. The strong currents kept dragging me. But then my brothers tied dried pumpkins and bottle gourd on either side to maintain buoyancy,” she says.The pumpkin and bottle gourds helped Yellavva stay afloat when she was totally exhausted. She says her brother, Lakshman, was in the front, while her father, Hanumappa, was swimming along with her. Two male relatives followed them. With every passing hour, the water level kept rising. “As we proceeded, the water began splashing on my face and I could hardly breathe. I felt as if my legs were giving way. Though initially I fell on my back, the current swiftly dragged me. My father asked me to turn on my stomach.”Yellava’s ordeal was made worse by the jute ropes tied to the pumpkins that kept constantly piercing her and her clothes filled with water, pulling her down. “Half an hour after I had gone into the water, I had just reached the middle of the river and there was no energy left even to breathe, forget flapping my limbs. Assuming I would just drift along the current, I began to drink the water to overcome fatigue which only worsened the situation.”She found herself sinking. “It was so scary. Then all those swimming around me started to push me one after another while my brother swimming in the front began dragging me by holding on to the rope. About 45 minutes later, we managed to reach the shores on Gollapallera Doddi village on the other side of the bank,” Yellavva recalled.The half-kilometre journey that takes 20 to 25 minutes in normal circumstances took Yellavva a gruelling over two hours. “Rather than swimming straight against the current, we chose to swim in a diagonal direction by adjusting ourselves with the current. Hence, it was more than a kilometre’s distance and took close to about two hours to finish the stretch,” Jattappa, Yellavva’s cousin told Bangalore Mirror. As soon as they reached the shore, they were greeted with angry remarks from the onlookers for their daring adventure.“There were four to five people on the bank who were just observing the floods. But when they spotted us, they became curious and came down till the shallow waters to give us a helping hand. On seeing my condition, they started yelling at my father for taking such a grave risk.”Yellavva says they asked her father what if she had been washed away in the currents. The question her father shot back in response silenced them. “He said what if she had died on the island awaiting medical help?” With the last ounce of strength ebbed out of her, the villagers then extended their help. They warmed her with towels and took her to a relative’s place.The mother-to-be is only grateful that she’s made it despite all the odds. Gripped by poverty, Yellavva has survived only on the bare minimum her family could provide for. “Both my dad and mom work as labourers. I am the oldest of seven children. Except for bajra rotis, subsidised rice and some vegetables, I ate nothing else ever since I conceived. Even on that day, I just had a couple of bajra rotis with onion chutney.”Meanwhile, awestruck by the story when he heard it from local villagers, Venkatesh Dore, a reporter with a Kannada daily, rushed to the spot. “By the time I reached, the family was reaching the shore and I managed to get a picture of the group getting out of the river.” Later the doctors and Deputy Commissioner of Yadgir visited the family. Doctors have reported that both the mother and yet-unborn baby are doing well, he said.