They covered the 600 m of the deepest stretch of the river, which has a maximum depth of 30 feet at one point, in 22 minutes flat

Swimming across the deepest stretch of Periyar on Thursday morning, 11-year-old Ibin C. Thomas never for once looked daunted.

Neither could anyone gauge that the youngster who was calmly wading through the water was visually-challenged. For the seventh standard student from the School for Blind, Aluva, who fought the loss of sight at the age of four to make his mark in arts and cultural field, the conquest of Periyar was another proud moment to cherish.

Making the moment special was his school headmistress Jiji Varghese who chose to swam across Periyar with her student.
 

Mimicry midway

“They covered the 600-metre of the deepest stretch of the river, which has a maximum depth of 30 feet at one point, in 22 minutes flat. Ibin was so composed and cheerful that he even chose to exhibit his mimicry skills imitating varied sounds while swimming. He kept calling out to me and I kept him on course,” said an elated Saji Valasseril who trained both of them and swam alongside them even as a country boat manned by volunteers carrying life jackets and buoys accompanied them.

Ibin walked into the embrace of his equally proud father C.M. Thomas as he completed the challenge successfully, “He was very enthusiastic and excited in the lead up to this day. He now eyes to swim across Vembanad Lake,” said Mr. Thomas who is also the PTA president of his son’s school.

Buoyed by the impressive feat of Ibin, Mr. Thomas now wants every student of the School for Blind to be trained in swimming. He felt that it will come in handy with floods becoming a recurring phenomenon in this part of the world,

In fact, the haunting memory of parents of 30-odd children of her school separated from their wards when Aluva was marooned in the deluge of 2018 was what prompted Ms. Varghese to take to swimming along with her student.

Mr. Valasseril, who has been giving free training to people of all age groups for the last 11 years, is now looking to train all 70 students of the School for Blind. Since 2010, he has trained over 3,000 people and more significantly, over 1,000 among them swam across Periyar.

Manoj, another 11-year-old visually-challenged student, had swam across Periyar under the tutelage of Mr. Valasseril last month and he is now eyeing to train around 1,000 during this vacation.
Source: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/11-year-old-visually-challenged-ibin-conquers-periyar-in-the-company-of-his-teacher/article30989361.ece?homepage=true