In an epic battle against the elements, Rabindranath Das had survived the sea for almost five days. First, he was given a hero's welcome. Now, he is a pariah in his own village, living in fear.

On July 4, Das had set out from Namkhana in the Sunderbans in FB Nayan, a fishing trawler, with 14 others, hoping for a big catch of hilsa in the Bay of Bengal. The weather became rough from the night of July 5. The next morning, the trawler could not hold up against the waves anymore. It capsized.

For three days, 13 men, mostly from villages in the Sunderbans, held on to bamboo poles and plastic cans and to each other, at least mentally, to remain afloat. Two other men remained trapped inside the trawler. But slowly they began to disappear from Das's sight.

Only Das, who was the majhi (master boatman) on the trawler and feels he had additional responsibility, survived.

On July 10, the fifth day, when his skin had almost been eaten away by the salt water, and fish were gnawing at his flesh and he was barely conscious, he was picked by a ship near Chittagong in Bangladesh and sent back to India. He had drifted hundreds of kilometres.

Then began another trauma, which is still continuing.

Though hailed as a hero in media reports when he was admitted to Kakdwip hospital, Das could not return home.

For two months, he lived in terror. He was on the run, moving from one relative's home to another, not taking phone calls, not meeting anyone.

He was afraid that anything could happen to him because some of his neighbours, who had lost their family members in the boat capsize, held him responsible for the tragedy.

'My family was being taunted and some people threatened to attack me,' says Das. 'I sometimes feel that I made a mistake by surviving.'

He is just back home in his village in Narayanpur, where he lives with his wife, two small children and parents, after the state government has given around Rs 2 lakh each to the families of the missing men. But the terror has not left Das. He feels he is not trusted any more.

He is not certain he or his family is safe. He does not know if he can stay in the village for long. He cannot go back to being a boatman because the thought of steering a boat traumatises him.

All because he could not die, he says. And since he is alive, 'I have not received a single paisa as compensation'.

His epic -- and victorious -- battle for survival has become his undoing.

He does not have a source of income and is dependent on relatives for financial help.

The fateful trip was Das's first assignment as a full-fledged majhi. The trawler was ill-equipped; the boat did not have enough life jackets or an adequate radio system, many said.

When this reporting team visited Narayanpur in late August, it found the neighbours hostile towards Das's family.

'People only visit his family,' said a middle-aged woman, Das's neighbour, whose son was in the boat. 'But he is alive! And there is no news of my son!' she cried, pointing at Das's home.

'The media only come to look for him. No one has visited us,' she said, tears streaming down her face.

Her daughter-in-law, a young woman, sat near her silently. Her eyes were swollen, but she was still dressed like any other married woman, in a colourful cotton printed sari and sindoor on the parting of her head. Three other men from Narayanpur were on Das's trawler. Their families were still hoping that they were alive, and would surprise them with a miraculous return.

'I am confident that nothing will happen to Das. We are keeping a close watch. Moreover, with all the affected families given Rs 2 lakh each, the tension has eased a bit,' said Satinath Patra, secretary of the Sunderbans Samudrik Motsojibi Sromik Union, who conceded that Das was advised not to go to his own house initially because of the anger brewing within his neighbourhood.

'Under the chief minister's initiative, families of all the lost fishermen were given Rs 2 lakh each,' confirmed Sunderbans affairs minister and Kakdwip MLA Manturam Pakhira.

But dead or alive, fishermen in a trawler like the one Das steered are equally and immensely vulnerable.

Minister Pakhira accepted that the trawlers often flout the norms. 'Despite repeated directives trawlers flout norms; from now on we will be stricter,' he said.