Reading the chapter ‘Deep Water’ from our NCERT English textbook, and owing to the many water-related accidents we frequently hear about, I have always been scared of water. Growing up without access to any pool, swimming as a skill wasn’t acquired, just like a few other things. But anticipating the imminent void and subsequent low phase that the abundance of free time post-mini-thesis & a certain someone’s homebound vacation were to bring (yet again) into my life, I decided that it was time to engage the mind with something productive. Also, it was about time I stopped blaming my folks for life’s have-nots and actually did something to change the state of things.
Anyhow, I took the first step, and the first class went well. Because I had all this pent-up passion to be a swimmer, I was able to follow the instructions of my coach, who, by the way, is very efficient, kind, and patient. However, towards the end of the first hour on that first day, something from Deep Water was happening with me…I was sinking, or so I thought (because you couldn’t practically sink in a 2 ft. deep pool being 5 ft. something)!
That same evening, I went for dinner at a friend’s place, where I met another mutual friend who told us about his recent trip to Sri Lanka. Among all things fun, a video he showed left a lasting imprint on my head. He showed us a clip of him scuba diving and almost losing his consciousness underwater, owing to his fear of water, inability to swim, and other reasons that I am unable to articulate at the moment. The timing to hear about his experience couldn’t be worse, because just hours before coming to this dinner, Assam was struck by the saddest news in recent history—the untimely demise of the legendary artist, Zubeen Garg, in a scuba diving accident in Singapore (which would later be found to be a debatable cause of death, but that is beside the point here).
We had a delicious dinner prepared by our friend, sang Rabindra Sangeet, and eventually, I returned to my hostel room. I slept, but it was a disturbed night, with me constantly feeling like I was in the water, drowning, almost dying, fighting for breath, sinking…like my friend in Sri Lanka, like Zubeen Garg in Singapore. The night passed, and it was 6 am before I wanted it to be 6. I was to leave for my class in an hour. The zeal with which I went to class on the first day has left me by now. For the next three days, I was a terrible student. It took all the discipline and rigour in me to not pay heed to that inner voice, which screamed every morning, “Let’s skip the swimming class today.” My coach must have hated me during this period because it’s not easy to endure the cowardice and repetitive mistakes of a seemingly attentive adult. The images of my friend and ZG drowning underwater kept coming back to me, and this made me doubt my own ability to handle things underwater. A lot of the initial swimming (for literally anyone) is just the efficacy of the pep talk you give your brain. Sadly, I was convinced that I’m no good at swimming and am a terrible learner with zero ability to adhere to instructions or retain skills. I had forgotten almost everything I learned on the first day. All the progress was gone, and I was terrified of the water. I couldn’t float, I couldn’t balance myself underwater, I couldn’t hold my breath, the water was in my mouth and nose, and almost everything about those one-hour sessions was awful.
By the second class, the friend with the Sri Lanka mishap had decided to join me to learn this very essential life skill. He wasn’t a pro at swimming, but he had more experience than me; he could float and manage freestyle. He was picking things up as smoothly as butter melts on a hot frying pan, and then there was I, unable to move ahead despite the best of instructions and cheerleading. I felt pathetic. I realised that I was a slow learner, and glimpses of past experiences with learning new skills just came rushing back to me.
For instance, the time when my five-year-old self couldn’t learn to ride a bicycle. Almost everyone in the family tried their luck teaching me, but I was just not able to follow, and then miraculously, on a Sunday morning, I picked it up when my elder brother casually taught me. He instantly became a hero in my eyes. Similarly, I remember being punished to stay back for an hour after school hours when in kindergarten because I was unable to write the cursive ‘B’ despite the best of the teacher’s efforts, pages of homework, and some vigilance by the mother. The teacher used this stayback-after-school as a last resort. I remember crying my eyes out; my teacher just won’t let me go. I obviously didn’t learn the b immediately, but by evening, the humiliation had done its job, and I could miraculously write my b’s satisfactorily.
I’ll share another anecdote to prove my slow-learner-miraculous-learning theory. I remember that we were asked to tie two braids for school as part of the good-girl-uniform. Every morning my mother and I would have a huge fight because I didn’t like her braids, and in her defense, she did her best (which obviously wasn’t a very aesthetic braid). We were both tired of this ugly morning mess, and I desperately wanted to learn the skill of braiding hair, but like all new skills, learning this wasn’t easy. Many friends tried to teach me and all their efforts went under water until one morning before the school assembly, my benchmate from eleventh grade (who continues to be a very dear friend) accidentally demonstrated an easy way (I know there is only one way to get a braid right, but whatever she did could be comprehended by my brain) and I could once again, seemingly effortlessly, pick up the skill of braiding hair.
When I was struggling to float and balance my body underwater, these experiences of learning new skills came back to me, and I began believing that the inability to swim or the failure to pick up instructions and retain the skill is but temporary. I began believing that the skill would come to me and I’d become well-versed with it in due course of time. Meanwhile, my coach advised me to get rid of the fear and show some confidence. After the fourth class, I went back home and gave myself some lessons on reassurance. By the fifth class, my fear was gone. I was still stuck with the basics, but at least the hesitance was gone.
I finished my tenth lesson today. I had to take a week’s gap in between because my skin was reacting to the chlorine water, and the dermat had advised a few days’ break. I’m still a noob; I still have a long way to go, but today I know that no matter how cranky those 20 minutes in the morning are, once I decide to get up and go to the pool, there’s nothing but a newfound zeal for life that will greet me once I walk out of the pool after the hour-long session. I am hopeful that if not within this month’s subscription, then at least with a few more rounds of self-assured dips, I’d be able to call myself an average swimmer.
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