During the last summer vacation, I went to my maternal uncle’s house at Chandannagar to stay there for three days. In the afternoon, I used to go with my two cousins, who were of about my age, to the nearest ghat on the Ganga, and take a boat on hire to row for sometime in the river. It was more or less our common occupation every afternoon.
One day my cousins told me that they wanted to row the boat up to Srirampur. I became nervous in view of the distance. But they seemed fearless, because they were used to it from their boyhood. They almost dragged me in the riverside.
Without the knowlede of the guardians, they hired a country boat. The boatman stayed in the boat, allowing us to row. Myself and Runu, one of my brothers, held a scull, and Sunu, the Other, sat at the helm. The boat moved slowly and steadily. It was the ebb tide then; and so we did not face much problem in rowing.
But on our way back, as it was still the ebb tide, we could hardly make any progress in spite of rowing with all our might. The boatman noticed our helplessness, and came to our rescue. Now the boat gained a better speed. But it was too late, when we reached home.
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My uncle and aunt were anxious about our unusual delay, because we did not disclose to them about our plan of boating. It was, no doubt, a great lapse on our part. However, it was a strange experience for me to row a boat like a boatman, and then fall sick due to pain on both the arms for rowing against the current.