How (not) to Learn Swimming in Three Days Straight!

You dreamt about being Jack of all trades but you are already in mid-thirties and bereft of any skill in life. Being good in studies was your alibi for quite some time and now you have a strong urge to learn something but you happen to be shy; you also happen to be District Magistrate of the place where you reside. 

You think about exotic hobbies like scuba diving, or something refined like learning Urdu but then you notice your ascending waistline. You zero on Swimming and casually mention it to someone in the town. He tells you how he totally approves it, where one can begin and why swimming is important for one’s overall well-being in life. He tells all those he meets why you have made the right choice. You feel happy inside and promise yourself that once you are done with swimming, you will continue to learn new skills in life.

Next day a group of professional swimmers come for a friendly chat. They explain how joining them may be better and there is logic in their argument. Same day three other groups come and demonstrate their teaching abilities. You choose a pool which belongs to the government and by virtue of being District Magistrate, you also happen to be the President of its Swimming Society.

As you reach the pool, members of managing committee along with their family members (and some distant cousins/neighbours) are there to make you comfortable. They warmly take you inside and as you come out from the changing room in your swimming tracks, you feel their piercing eyes scanning your not so perfectly chiselled body. You are suddenly conscious of the long hairs emanating from various corners of your body and rush to get inside the pool.

The coach is extremely warm and tells you how simple it is to learn this art and shows you simple water exercises. You imitate them fast and he profusely praises your spontaneity. He prophesises you will learn swimming in three days straight. You dream about your sculpted body after days of swimming and toy with the idea of an Olympic gold but for the moment, keep it on hold.  

Next day you are chief guest in a public program and are suddenly woken up from your slumber by generous praise that speaker has unleashed about your swimming capabilities. He repeats the prophecy that you will perfect swimming in three days straight and now you can feel the weight of expectations of entire town. You sheepishly smile and wonder if anyone is still left to learn about your new endeavour in life.

Being diligent learner, you reach the swimming pool again on time and again a horde is there to welcome you inside. You enter the pool and find the coach smiling warmly. He today ups the swimming lessons and you find them difficult. You also realise that breathing water is not something that lungs like and your eyes complain that water of the pool has chlorine inside. Your performance today was not that you dreamt but you still have a day to master this art.

Next day, there is pain in muscles you never knew existed in your body. You still go to the swimming pool and the coach is there to teach some new tricks but you find them completely impossible. You feel that only thing that loves you in this world is gravity of swimming pool calling you inside. In your naivete, you share this thought with the coach who tasks you with touching the swimming pool floor with your hands. You try and try and try and fail at that. The coach murmurs words of motivation and ask you to continue but you have missed the three-day target.

You take a break for couple of days and decide to compromise Olympic dreams. You internalise that you enter the water to rejoice and learning to swim is incidental. You are back with full enthusiasm and the coach smiles at you but you feel he has chuckled. You behave with him like estranged couple and ignore him rest of the time. You keep punishing water by your slaps and you also try to slap it by your feet but gravity still wants you inside.

You go to the pool off and on but avoid looking coach in the eye. You find others who tell what you have been doing wrong and they make perfect sense every time. You discuss with them politics, climate change and career choice of their niece and rejoice. Soon you have discovered 10001 ways in which one cannot swim and feel like writing a book about that.  

Winter comes to your rescue and the pool shuts down. You blame it for not being able to learn this new trade but now you confident that your actual interest was in Badminton. You still wonder if you should mention it to someone in your town. Meanwhile members of the Swimming pool management committee (and other swimming clubs) visit you every alternate day and remind that pool would reopen next month.

Since You Have Been!

The flowers always bloomed, and were colourful too

The birds chirped on the trees, and sailed in far off skies

But since you have been,

Flowers glow in radiant colours, and smile at me

Birds now chirp melodies, and when I listen carefully

There are love songs in their humming

I adored winter mornings

When I could wrap myself in the blanket, and hold soft pillow for company

But now when you are next to me, mornings are welcoming, cosy

When I wake up from my dreams, I am happy, often smiling,

and I try to lull myself to sleep to relive that dream

I always loved poets and poetry, and felt I understood it

But now when I recite them to you

Those myriads of couplets, lost ages ago, come rushing to greet you

Those verses open their heart

And I live the poet and poetry,

I was happy in life, and enjoyed the solitude

I walked on deserted streets, or sat down and gazed the evening sky, 

Now when I am alone and look at the sky, stars twinkle in glory

There are new constellations, seen and unseen and if I stay there for sometime

They whisper pieces of poetry

I often think how to describe you,

As earthy smell of first rain, or morning dew in lush garden

Or silence of the mountains, or may be as gushing sound of a hasty spring

You are also like the colour of sky, with myriad hues on different times

And then I remember your laughter on a dull day, spreading cheerfulness all around

I feel you are like the sound of a train, waxing and waning

You are also like view of the world outside, from the window of a train

Lush green fields, Kids playing carefree,

Lotuses blooming in a deserted pond

When evening falls, passing lights of small towns

And a frail old couple, holding hands and walking

I always hated words but since you have been

I do not need them to talk to you

Since you have been

I believe in hope, kindness, beauty, eternity

I believe in all the beautiful things in life,

And did I tell this ever to you,

Since you have been

Love makes much more sense to me