India, May 15 -- F ive years ago, she nearly drowned in a waterfall. Cut to last week, Vrushali Prasade and her husband, Danish Abdi, became the first Indian couple to swim across the 32km stretch of Palk Strait from Sri Lanka to India. The Bengaluru-based IT professionals set course on May 7 at 4.30 am from Talaimannar (Sri Lanka) in pitch darkness, charting the stretch in 11 hours. Speaking to us, they open up about the historic feat. "We spent around 11 hours straight in the water, stopping every 45 minutes for a drink of water and a sandwich. At one point, we were just treading water without making any real progress... but we knew that we just had to wait for Mother Nature to give us her permission," Danish tells us. To put it into perspective, both Danish and Vrushali lost around 3kg during the swim itself! In the pre-dawn hours, the couple came across a daunting challenge: being ambushed by sea creatures. "It felt like someone was throwing stones at us in the dark. It was pitch dark, so we really couldn't see anything," Danish recalls, adding, "At first, we thought it was the coach (Satish Kumar), but he was right beside us. Later, when we reviewed the support boat's footage, we realised a school of flying fish had pelted us. Apart from that, I was also stung by jellyfish about five or six times." The biggest challenge the couple endured was not the physical fatigue, but the mental toll. It was a quiet 11 hours, with no scope for conversation. Vrushali shares, "There is no stimulus in the water. In running or cycling, the scenery changes, and you can talk to your partner. But swimming really tests if you are comfortable with your own thoughts." Echoing the sentiment, Danish adds that it was almost boring: "It was meditative, yes. And there was definitely a lot of pride. But swimming for 11 hours straight can get boring... I was humming to myself, often singing qawwalis." By the time they touched the Indian shore at Tamil Nadu's Dhanushkodi, both of them were dealing with a bizarre physical side effect: salt-induced inflammation. "The first thing I wanted was ice cream because one thing you don't predict is how much your tongue swells," Vrushali shares, adding that she downed four ice cream cones.She adds, "I just needed to taste something and feel something in my mouth that was not my own tongue." For Danish, the first request was a celebratory plate of fresh fish, a fittingly ironic end to a record-breaking day at sea....