Remembering Bigul Pandit, 21, presumed dead in the Murray River

Into the treacherous water and out of sight. Lost.

The 21-year-old was the kind of man you might hope your son becomes. 

You didn't need to know Bigul long to love him. 

In a message to The Border Mail, his mother, Guna Rimal, lamented her loss.

"Where is my son, where are you? I do not know," she said.

"Bigul [it] is not life without you."

After more than a month with no sign of the international student, police and rescuers presume he is dead, drowned. 

In the hours before he went swimming, Bigul cooked an early dinner, a goat curry, for his boss Guru Ghuman and friend Emamul Milon. 

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In the months leading up to his disappearance, the trio spent long hours together at Guru's Star Cafe. 

After the bustle of customers faded, the trio would sit over a coffee talking about everything or nothing. 

The curry was still sitting in Mr Milon's kitchen when he heard Bigul was missing; curling and hardening.

He made it a mantra, he would wash the dish when Bigul was found. 

But eventually, hope faded into grief, and Mr Milon cleaned the bowl.

"There’s no hope anymore, it’s been too long," he said.

For his boss, Guru Ghuman, without Bigul something is missing in his bright cafe. A pointed emptiness greets him when he walks through the door.

The absence of a friend. 

"The store was shut for two weeks, I just couldn’t do it," he said.

"After we were closed a few days I tried to open but I couldn’t...even though he was supposed to start work at 10am or 11am he used to come in at 6.30am and we’d have coffee together.

"I walked in a few times and just missed that, so I closed the door and went away."

Mr Pandit had worked at the cafe for only a few months, but he'd become family for Mr Ghurman.

He was a smiling part of many customers lives every day.

When Mr Ghurman heard Bigul was missing his whole body started shaking, he spent many hours by the banks of the river. Hoping...

"He was the perfect soul," Mr Ghurman said.

"If I ever have a son I would really like him to be like Bigul. He put a smile on many faces, not many people can do that."

For his family and friends Bigul's absence has only been made harder by their lack of answers. 

"His family is still hoping they find him alive," Mr Ghurman said. 

"That he might be kidnapped or he might come from somewhere, it’s just a hope..."

Without his body, without answers the family cannot be at peace.

And neither can Bigul.

"They need to finish the last rituals in their faith so his soul will rest in peace," Mr Milon said. "They believe if they don't do it he won't be resting."

Mr Milon wants additional signs along the river bank, warning people the river is deadly. 

He said if people - especially tourists and internationals students - knew how many people had died in the Murray River, maybe they would rethink swimming. 

Maybe tragedy could be avoided. 

Bigul Pandit is never far from Paul Marshall's mind.

Their inability to reunite Bigul's family with the 21-year-old's body has certainly taken its toll, the Albury and Border Rescue Squad captain says. 

The search for Bigul has not been an easy one.

Police divers scoured the murky water for three days, without luck. 

For 15 days straight during a record-breaking heatwave, the rescue squad was on the water morning and night - working between shifts on the boat.

Eventually they were forced to scale back due to volunteering exhaustion.

But they haven't given up hope or stopped searching. 

"The fact he's still missing, it definitely takes a mental toll on members," Mr Marshall said.

"You second guess decisions and wonder what has happened."

The volunteers know more than most the dangers of the Murray, the beast as they call it. They've snatched people from snags just in time and recovered bodies from its depths.

In the last 173 years, more than 240 drownings have occurred in the Murray River in Albury-Wodonga, the Wodonga Creek and Lake Hume.

"Every number is someone's family, someone's mother, father, brother or sister," Mr Marshall said.

While some bodies had never been recovered, Mr Marshall remains hopeful Bigul will be.

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