Tanaz Noble’s new role is educating people in first aid, lifesaving and lifeguarding skills in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
Farrokh Jijina
"There were so many times in the past where I or someone I knew wanted to do something challenging, like swimming or kayaking inter-island despite the currents...Well-calculated risks that we had trained for, but which still required some element of safety like a back-up boat or someone keeping an eye out for us crazy ones,” says Tanaz Noble, expert kayakist, scion of perhaps the only Parsi family residing in the Andaman and Nicobar (AN) Islands, and now secretary of the Rashtriya Life Saving Society’s (RLSS) Andaman and Nicobar Association which has a presence in 20 Indian states.
She was in communication with Parsiana on July 28, 2024 about her appointment with RLSS announced 10 days prior. The objective of RLSS is to educate people in first aid, lifesaving, lifeguarding skills and lifesaving sports. Noble explained that "RLSS has certified me with the ability to train and certify lifeguards and teach the basics in first aid and resuscitation… But certifying someone isn’t enough…Getting out there every day, watching, observing, practicing, this is what makes the difference in the event of a mishap…Because these skills have to be instinctive.”
Tanaz Noble (inset and holding oar) with Venus and Zenith
In the Union Territory, an archipelago of 836 islands (31 inhabited) grouped as northern Andaman Islands and the southern Nicobar Islands, separated by a 150 km channel, "the only way our lifeguards knew to keep us safe was to prevent us from entering the water… So once you got past them and into the water they stopped chasing you because they could neither swim, nor do they have boats or boards or any support system to come after you with,” she smirked.
Most of the people residing in Islands fear the ocean, a startling fact Noble shared with Parsiana. "Less than one percent know how to swim. Even fewer can save a life. A common and frequent worry people here have is ‘won’t we drown if water enters our ears?’” As secretary of RLSS her role will be to make people aware of the risks, recognize the signs of drowning and learn how to prevent it. "School kids come and get excited about jumping off the seawall … (but) because they can’t swim, they either face trouble once they are in deep water, or they get injured when jumping into shallow water.” There needs to be training for "where to jump from, who can jump, what precautions need to be in place.”
She proposes to do this through awareness programs and training sessions. "I’ll be required to identify potential lifesavers and lifeguards, train them and place them with jobs to keep our beaches safe… I’ll be required to approach schools, colleges and punchayets to continue scouting for talent and teaching basic first aid and resuscitation, a compulsory requirement now for any sort of tour guide in the Islands and, lastly, to encourage the sport of lifesaving… We need to make the sport larger than life here… While not all this will be achieved during my tenure, I intend to make a good start.”
An earlier experience in kayaking in Cape Town, South Africa, taught Noble the importance of expertise in lifesaving. "The waters are so rough that I cried tears of relief every time I returned from a kayak session… One of the lifesavers mentioned that foreigners such as myself shouldn’t be on the water in those conditions because we hadn’t enough experience. When I argued, they interjected saying it would be good practice for them, so they let me on the water.” The intrepid woman got onto the water despite "knowing deep down that the conditions were too rough for them to even locate me, or get to me before hypothermia did. But I’m still here... Inspired.
"My real motivation to do this is my kids. They are literally surrounded by water. It’s not like Bombay or a big city where you can easily live your life without ever having set foot in the ocean,” said the single mother to two-year-old twins, Zenith and Venus (see "The joy of motherhood,” Parsiana, July 21-August 6, 2022). Her children’s "lives and lifestyles will be determined by their relationship with and abilities within the ocean…You can see the glee every time they see someone in the water, or the way they chant ‘ka-ya-king’ when they want to kayak…or when I just take them into the ocean… There is a bond, a close bond being created here between them and this magnificent ocean.”
The RLSS is a registered charitable trust in India, an official branch of the Royal Life Saving Society and a member of the International Life Saving Federation. Lifesaving as a sport is overseen by the International Life Saving Federation which was established in 1910 in Paris. It is one of the contests at the World Games, a multi-sport event, for the International Olympic Committee recognized sporting events that are not yet included in the program of the Olympics.