Why You Must Know How to Swim

Calcutta summer evenings see me paddling in our community club pool, thrashing about with my legs and imagining what it might be like to have feet like Michael Phelps. Or Frodo Baggins. And after it strikes me that the amount of hair on a hobbit's foot  is something akin to the amount of wool you'd shear off a mid-sized sheep, and that a blanket knit up with foot-hair is not what the market demands, I begin contemplating the worthlessness of life, work and the regular tedium. And it was at some point along this continuum of thought (I remember thinking of how Veet would benefit if all of us were hobbits), that I was startled by a sudden flurry of bubbles that rose objectionably beside me.

Squinting, I noticed a soppy mop of a bob-cut, a red face that was smaller than the balloons you see strung up in sundry party locations and a row of what were presumably milk teeth. There is something to be said of the Gods that imbue certain selective mortals with the power of myopia, though none of it very pleasant. Should they chance upon our thoughts when tuned onto 'brain-frequency' on their prayer-radios, their reaction would be something thus. Picture sitting with your mother, your grandmother, your aunt and your aunt's kitty party on your living room couch, flipping through channels when all of a sudden, the remote battery dies at the least opportune moment and you're stuck looking at skimpily clad bounteous buttocks bouncing in tune to Honey Singh's music and turning a shade of red that the ripest tomatoes could never master. That is what the expressions on those Gods' faces would resemble if they could hear our fervent curses. Although, I sense that they would resort to the argument that I developed myopia from looking at those skimpily clad bounteous buttocks for far too long on MTV in the first place. An age-old argument that has never been proven. 

'Please don't do that,' I say chidingly. My voice, I've noticed, when speaking to kids has a dolorous ring to it. It's as if I'm not particularly fond of reprimanding them when they're so full of joy and unburdened by worries, and wish to revel in their trifling glories. At the same time, I'm also conscious that the only way to attune myself to their state of happiness is to give those kids a few choice smacks. I'm a man conflicted, some might say.

The kid paddled on, gripping those fluorescent rubber boards that I'm going to call 'floating aids' because I don't know what the technical term is, gleefully chuckling all the while and bumping into the side of the pool to his utmost joy. 'How did I learn to swim at his age,' I wonder. 'Ah yes, I was thrown into the lake infested with slimy fish and suspicious algae-like things that graze against your legs and give you the heebie-jeebies and told to keep paddling if I wanted to breathe'. It was all good fun, I cede now. The trainer was a sinewy, broad-chested, obsidian statue of a man named Eshwar. In Bengali, his club mates called him Esshhor. Pet kata moddhenno'r 'Sh'-o (I think). To be fair, he was always there in the lake, ensuring no-one completely drowned on his watch. Which is a shame because I'd rather have died than do the replace-trunks-with-underwear-while-holding-on-to-precarious-towel-knot drill everyone does once they climb out. But I was eight and a pudgy naked kid who can't undo the knot on his swimming trunks was a perfectly acceptable thing back then. In retrospect, a few choice smacks would have done me good. Which is not to say I didn't get my fair share. My earliest memories of swimming were of flailing around in the cordoned-off area of the lake, being smacked on the head religiously by Esshhor and being told to 'MOVE ARMS ROUUUUUUUND ROUUUUUUUUUND' with a helpful demonstration of the same performed by him. As he swam around lithely, arms breaking the water surface without a splash, a perfect example of a merman at peace with having developed appendages in place of a fish-tail, I remember thinking, 'The fuck! This is supposed to be games period!' *SMACK*

I found myself in the lake 10 years later when I was out rowing with Romit. There are precious few in my age group in our school circles who don't know Romit. Romit was the captain of the rowing team. Romit played football like a boss. Romit was the heart-throb of LMG. Romit was like Pappu in that song from Jane Tu Ya Jane Na except that he was the captain of the dance team as well. Romit is the most genial fellow ever, so when he's there sitting behind you on a two-pair skull in the middle of the lake, quipping on about some happy incident and happens to mention, 'Oh by the way, don't look back, my oar's come loose', your natural reaction would be, 'Lol-Wut?' after which you might choose to shriek with anguish if you feel it will ease your nerves, but in the end, when an oar comes loose on a narrow boat made of what is essentially plastic and floats away, what you're left with is not exactly what you'd call...balanced. It is said that your life flashes by your eyes during a near-death experience. But I am, and have stolidly remained for the better part of my life, severely myopic - so whatever reel death had planned for my pleasure during my dying moments..let's just say I missed the matinee showing. As the boat capsized and the murky waters of the lake came up to meet me and dislodge my glasses and sod my garishly red-and-blue striped rowing jersey ( a good riddance, at least the last one), my thoughts curiously returned to Esshhor who had achieved some minor fame a few years ago when he caught a full-grown Rohu fish yeehhh big *hands four feet apart* in this very lake. And as I struggled with the straps on the foot-board of my boat, upside-down with a healthy gulp of mudwater in my lungs, I began to contemplate the possibility of many more such monstrosities lurking in hidden coves far below the surface, and if they did, how far along the food-chain had I managed to come in my 17 years?

Obvious evidence points to the fact that I survived that incident. 'Swimming is in your blood,' says my father, the champion rower from Dufferin and captain in the merchant navy. I'm more inclined to trust the college medical attendant in Vellore who claimed, 'Alcohol is in your blood....500 Rupees'. Everyone knows alcohol is lighter than water, then how can I ever drown? Physics!

Sayan doesn't seem to live by that same philosophy though, as I discovered during my recent trip to Goa. The conditions were the same or close enough to make no matter, in the sense that alcohol was well and truly in our blood, and the boat a similar replica of a two-pair skull. To help you get a clearer picture, a Banana Boat in Goa is to a boat what a blow-up doll is to a human. And while it is true one can have all manner of fun with a blow-up doll, it is not at all recommended to have 5 people mount it at once. But the guys offering the ride seemed without qualms and happily pocketed our 1000 bucks before helping us slip into our life jackets and starting up their water skis. The idea is to drag the Banana Boat out well off-shore and then jerk the ski around so the pillions are flung into the waves and are free to bob up and down and cry for their mommas, if need be. Sayan is one of my batchmates in B-School, glass-wearer, stubble-haver and having that predisposition to look down on others due to a condition that can only be described as 6'2. Sayan likes his scotch neat (preferably with a straw) and his Banana Boat steady. I have a theory. Give a man a tube of facewash and he will glow with the radiance of a John Abraham who doesn't compromise with tan-lines. But drown him in seawater and all the goodness of salt exfoliates and seaweed extracts will only remind him of how he can't swim and make him sound the words 'O fuck' on repeat. 

'O fuck-O fuck-O fuck- glub-glub-glub-O fuck-O fuck- O fuck-' Sayan shouted.

'Ah well,' I thought, 'He had a good life.'

But like Superman and all other protagonists, Sayan reached within himself, remembered the sage advice of some old man who featured earlier in the film, steeled himself for victory and flew up into the sky, hauling us up along with the boat and setting us down safely on the beach. Not really. He whimpered and cried till he was helped back up and refused to let go even when the sea was far behind us. Just as well. 

I looked around. The kids were clambering out of the pool and heading for their dressing rooms. 'Finally,' I thought, 'The pool's all to myself.' Floating on my back in a pool half-empty with all the splendor of a water-buffalo, a whisper of light rain pattering down on my smiling face, I must have made quite a sight. But it's an elation those who're afraid to get their feet wet will never know.