Life comes full circle for tsunami survivor Meghana

HYDERABAD

Life has come full circle for 33-year-old Meghana Rajsekhar, whose life reads like a quiet defiance of fate. She was 12 when a 9.3 scale earthquake triggered tsunami waves, erasing her family, neighbourhood and almost all the villages in Car Nicobar, Andaman & Nicobar Islands on December 26, 2004. The waves carried her away from everything she had known, leaving her alone in a world abruptly emptied of familiarity.

For years, water remained her adversary. A reminder of loss, terror, and survival. Yet, in time, the very element that once threatened to consume her became the one through which she learned to breathe again.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, Meghana survived on instinct and resolve. On the fourth day, weakened but alert, she spotted a man standing atop a cliff and called out. He led her to Indian Air Force personnel, who arranged medical care and her return to Hyderabad. There, her father’s friend, Group Captain G. J. Rao, ensured her enrolment in a boarding school in Vikarabad at her own request.

Meghana studied architecture at Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, imagining a future shaped by sustainable design. In 2018, as she prepared to leave for the University of Helsinki, her body faltered. A sudden and severe drop in haemoglobin level to a count of 2 forced her to abandon her plans and reckon with mortality once more.

In that fragile interlude, she found herself longing for a reunion with the man who had saved her life years ago.

A chance call from Group Captain Rao set off a search that led her back to Car Nicobar in Decemeber 2018. There, hosted by Air Commodore Bhullar, she met Basil, the tribal fisherman who had pulled her from the margins of death. Over weeks that stretched into months, they forged a bond that needed no explanations. She also reconnected with Beula, a schoolmate she had last seen on Christmas 2004.

In an interview with the Hindu, Meghana said “you only fear things that you do not understand. Repeated exposure was the only way out.” She began returning to it deliberately. One course at a time, one descent at a time starting from 2019. What started as scuba diving slowly evolved into something deeper in the course of 200 dives and countless swims. During the first COVID-19 lockdown, a brief stay on Shaheed Dweep turned into months of isolation as she got stuck there, compelling her to confront both solitude and sea more intimately. 

Freediving followed naturally in 2023. To descend on a single breath required more than strength; it demanded stillness within. “You meet yourself there,” she would later say. Beneath the surface, stripped of noise, reliant only on calm and trust.

By 2024, she was slipping into the blue alongside sperm whales and humpbacks. Later that year, she swam around the circumference of Car Nicobar with a team led by Group Captain Param Vir, tracing the island’s edge with her own steady rhythm in a span of 3 days.

This year, training in Thailand took her deeper still, to 30 metres on one breath. Injuries from last year and this year compounded, withdrawing her from the sea temporarily. For now, she rests, heals, trains in aquatic bodyworks and waits, keen on returning to the ocean by March 2026 ideally.

When she is not in the water, Meghana turns outward. She illustrates her underwater journeys, and works with a handful of orphanages in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam, offering academic support, teaching soft skills, and helping with medical aid. In the second half of this year, she has partnered with Group Captain G. J. Rao to contribute to his suicide prevention mission.

Meghana is also writing about her journey into the sea alongside the stories of those who inspired her forward. Through her words, she hopes to honour children without parents, coastlines without protection, and communities whose survival depends on care for both land and sea. Education, conservation, responsible travel, and sustainable livelihoods form the backbone of this vision.

Once, the ocean took everything from her. Now, she enters it by choice, not to escape the past, but to find herself, breath by breath.