When grandma goes swimming

A new pool has opened in our colony. Attached to the pool is an indoor badminton court. Now badminton was my sport when I was in college, played for the college and university. Got my gear, called up Nandini and we agreed to meet at the court.

As we walked in, the swimming pool was rippling in the sun and I stopped. That was another mountain I had to conquer.

For the last so many years, I had been trying to learn how to swim; but I never did it seriously enough, I guess! I just flopped around in the water.

Ok! So, I was now going to learn both - I was more sure of badminton; swimming was still a question mark

Anyway, Nandini and I started going everyday to the court and the pool. After all my muscles stopped complaining and my aches and pains subsided from my badminton, I regularly dipped into the pool.

Now for my swimming – I can hold my breath and swim underwater in the shallows from one bar to the next at an angle of 90degrees. So, I actually swim about six feet, holding my breath underwater.

Now as I grew more confident and watched Nandini swim effortlessly, I told myself, I had to do better.

Tried picking up my head out of the water! My legs stopped kicking! And I flopped down! Of course, I floundered!

Then Raji appeared on the scene, all the way from Doha! She gave me the courage and the trick of letting my breath out in the water. So, there we were, my air bubbles and I walking across one shallow side to the other.

Now all I had to do was to kick up my legs and flail my arms and I would be swimming like Nandini!

I tried and I floundered all over again and swallowed a couple of gallons of water! I worked at it but no luck! I pleaded with Raji to stay on for a while but she was headed back.

Then Sudha came with her four year old grand-daughter. Now watching Sudha swim was comforting because she too barely picked up her head, maybe twice in a length!

Then of course the coach arrived, and I gathered the courage to ask him for help to regulate my breathing. He was a very good swimmer and a young man who knew what he was talking about—he told me that I should have my head out once for every two strokes of the arms!

'But then my arms are not out of the water?'

If I pick up my head, my legs go down. He then asked me to hold the bar and practice putting my head up and down - a lot on the lines of the toy hen that pecks up and down when it is wound up.

I told him very seriously, "I can't do that I will get an attack of vertigo!'

Nandini came to my rescue. She said, 'Do it at your own pace! You are in no competition!"

Then the coach tried teaching Sudha how to touch her ear to the extended arm, thus bringing her mouth out of the water. She gave up, not completely though.

Once in a while, especially when the coach is around, I see her trying. Then when we connect she breaks into a giggle!!

Lalitha is another member – a grandma coming with her granddaughter, who swims fairly well. Lalitha does a cute dog paddle—I am sure there must be someone saying the same about me!

But what I really love and admire is our collective josh for learning and improving ourselves -none of us have had any kind of training in our childhood. Some of us from rural hinterlands are also conquering our well entrenched sermons of childhood on baring our bodies!

I shall give it a few more days, and – maybe, I will manage on my own! Maybe, I will teach myself how to raise my head and fill air into my lungs and then let it out in the water. Maybe…I will swim like Nandini one day!

But one thing is sure, I am not giving up the pool!

I shall swim this summer, not for anything else but for the wonderful relaxed feeling I get after sweating it out in the badminton court!

I want to be able to conquer my fear and enjoy this wonderful facility!

Shyamola Khanna