Archana Sankaranarayanan: India’s Deepest Woman

PostedJuly 4, 2025

Once a lawyer.
Now India’s deepest woman in the ocean.

Archana Sankaranarayanan traded the weight of courtrooms for the hush of depth. She walked away from corporate law — and surfaced somewhere more real: 42 metres down on a single breath, holding the national record for India’s deepest female freediver.

The Break

Law promised a life. A good one.
Big firm. Big city. Big hours.
But the ocean had other plans.

It started like it does for many — with a holiday. A New Year’s trip to the Andaman Islands, a few scuba dives slipped in between beach parties. But what was supposed to fill a few sleepy days cracked something open instead. A shallow reef off Havelock Island — clownfish flicking through coral. A memory she couldn’t stop replaying once she was back at her desk.

She tried to keep both lives alive for a while — but the ocean is greedy. Once it has you, it doesn’t let you go. Archana turned her back on her law career. She went back to Andaman, again and again. She learned the drills. Took every course. Rescue diver, pro diver, dive school social media. But even tanks weren’t enough.

Going Deeper

Scuba was safe.
Freediving was not.

It terrified her at first. Archana found Shubham Pandey, one of India’s best freedivers, and flew to Nusa Penida, Bali — a one-way leap into the unknown. The first dive without tanks felt endless. Five metres that felt like fifty. She surfaced panicked, lungs burning. But she went back down. And then again.

Two days later she was at twenty metres.
Then thirty.
A dive with manta rays sealed the deal — this was it. This was her place.

In 2023 she took that breath into competition, reaching forty-two metres at a depth competition in Panglao. Her national record — thirty-five metres — rewrote what Indian women are told is possible.

Making Space for More

For Archana, freediving was never meant to be a solo act. She wants to see others go deeper too — especially women. She’s pushing for India to stand on its own with AIDA, the global freediving body. Right now, Indian athletes register under other countries to compete. Archana wants that to change. She wants young divers to have a ladder she didn’t.

The ocean gave her a mirror. A teacher. A truth-teller. And she plans to give that back — one breath at a time.

Deep Beings

Biology may say women float.
Archana says women are deep beings — built to sink calmly into the blue when the mind is ready to let go. She trains for depth, but what she really trains is trust. Trust in her body. Trust in her lungs. Trust in the hush that waits for her when the surface fades.

Freediving teaches her her limits and erases them in the same breath. It shows her the parts she wants to fix. It holds her honest.

The Work Ahead

She knows India is still waking up to freediving — especially for women. But she’s here for it. She wants to build paths for new records, new athletes, new stories. She wants more divers to taste that hush she found by accident.

Archana’s story is proof that the ocean has room for everyone who dares to answer its pull. You don’t have to start strong. You just have to start.