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.

Dear Students II

Chairman Shemford School, Principal, Faculty, Parents and Dear students, a Very Good evening!

I am extremely happy and honored to be present here with you tonight. I am as excited as you all are as I am not just a Chief Guest here but a father whose son performed tonight. I had butterflies in my stomach all the time. I compliment the students for putting up such a great show tonight. I am amazed by the potential that I see in all these kids and I am sure they are going to attain great heights in life.

And now coming back to my formal speech, I have been strictly instructed by my wife not repeat what I have already said so many times. I was also advised that if I want to tell anything to the children, I can tell them a story instead.

So, I will tell you a story about a boy. He was like you all in all respects, minus the special talent that you exhibited tonight. He watched TV cartoons, ate lot of candies and was little rude sometimes. I guess he was also slightly lazier than you all. He had loving parents who told him he should behave well with all and great teachers who told him he should work hard. They sometimes made sense to him and sometimes they did not.

One night when he had just got into his bed, he saw from his window that the weather was pleasant outside. There was cool breeze blowing and someone was humming a song. His eyes grew heavy and just then he saw a boy smiling. The boy said his name was Dream and he was here to be his friend. Dream was with him when he was sleeping but he could also see Dream with open eyes. Dream took him to the world of Cartoons, Chocolates and Cakes. Dream could also summon Super heroes, Monsters and Ghosts sometimes.

As he grew up, Dream told him that he should be successful in life. Dream also told him to learn new things or at least try but the boys was extremely shy. He slowly tried to run away from Dream. One-day Dream asked him to perform in the school play, like you all did just now but he did not like it.

He wanted to avoid dream and kept looking outside the window. It was raining heavily and he saw there was another boy getting wet in the rain outside. Before he could say anything, the boy came and said his name was Fear and he wanted to stay with him for some time. Since he wanted to avoid the Dream this time, he agreed to that.

Whenever Dream told him to do something big and not be shy, Fear said he won’t be able to succeed. Fear also told him that if he failed, others will laugh. Fear said only those who were lucky or extremely talented when they were born could do all that.  Slowly Fear also brought his two friends, Ignorance and Arrogance. Ignorance advised you should never worry about what your Parents or Teachers said and you know everything that is required. Arrogance told him that it was OK to be rude and bad. They whispered in his ears that no one loved him in this life. Slowly he was not a good boy and everyone wondered what had changed in his life.

One day it was a bright sunny day and he was playing outside. He saw Dream was just around and he asked Dream if he could come and sit nearby. He told Dream he wanted to do so many things in this life and if Dream could bring him Aladdin’s lamp through which he can realize all that. He had recently read the story of Aladdin and his magic lamp. Dream said he could invite Aladdin but his lamp was not of much help in real life but he knows someone who can help him achieve whatever he desires.

Dream called Hard work who told him that there was no magic in this world and if he wants to succeed in life, he has to believe in what his teachers, parents and his good old school text books said. Now whenever he felt shy or was not sure in life, he called hard work and took its advice. So, before his class tests he practiced many times. During play, he rehearsed his lines many times. Now Fear did not come nearby. 

Slowly being with Hard work, he realized that one needs to work upon how you are. You need to improve upon your weaknesses and play upon your strengths. You can do that if you try to understand yourself. He did not get all the answers but realized that asking questions was what mattered in life. He also learnt that if you know then you cannot and if you do not, then you keep knowing on and on. He decided to retain the twinkle in his eyes for new things of life.

If I think about it now, this boy did what he did because he worked hard, played on his strengths and believed in what dreams told him in his life. Friends I was that boy and I am so happy to share this tonight.

All these children performed so well tonight that I am humbled. Being here with such talented kids, I am reminded of the song by Louis Armstrong:

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow

They will learn much more, than I will ever know,

And I think to myself,

What a wonderful world!

This was all I wanted to say tonight. And like it is done in all good old books, let me mention three morals of the story before I end.

1. You will never find Aladdin’s lamp in this life

2. Dream and Hard work can be your only true friends.

3. On cold dark nights, Fear will try to become a part your life but take help of Hard work to keep it out!

Thank you for listening to me patiently, wishing kids all the best in life!

Of Being Important and being the Main Man!

You always wanted to be an important man. You prayed to God and as luck would have it, God agreed to that. Ok, almost did that!

So here you were, in a profession where you became the locally available, affordable, approachable and still reasonably acceptable Chief Guest for various occasions. You were invited as Chief Guest in local book festivals, you were called to preside over at cultural events and then you were cutting ribbons at Puja pandals.

The people who invite you are humble, respectful and they make your life miserable to ensure there is Chief Guest at their event. They forward Good morning messages along with hoaxes on whatsapp, send Facebook requests and ask when they meet next why you were yet to accept that and call thrice a day to verify that you haven’t yet changed your mind. You get nightmares of being K..K..K..K Kiran from movie Darr being stalked by Shahrukh Khan.

You want the event to get over quickly and commit the mistake of reaching on time. Even organisers are surprised/disappointed to see that. They have been wrongfully denied the opportunity to call you couple of more times.

You are given a warm welcome by showering flowers as it befits a worthy Chief Guest. Slowly the soft flowers give way to Marigold petals and showering get converted to throwing them with force on your poor self. Some kids relish at hitting bulls eye and soon there is a barrage of hitting petals on your eyes, neck and your head. You feel the pointed petals sticking on your sweating self and finding way to strange corners of your body and you rush towards the dais to save yourself.

There you realise that the organisers did not trust you all this time. There is a horde of back up Chief Guests occupying the dais. The number of people on your side exceed those sitting in front as spectators and you feel like volunteering to sit in front but hold on. You also wonder how round table inaugurations would be perfectly workable in such scenarios and would also save the cost of a dais.  

You want this ordeal to end but there is one co-chief guest yet to arrive and you wait on and on and curse yourself for arriving on time.  You make small talk with person sitting next and share their concern about weather, politics and academic future of their child. You stretch your cheeks to portray how privileged you are to sit on this side of the dais.

To the relief of all, program finally begins and the announcer starts by eulogising about their organisation, its history and importance of this event. You now know that in the history of mankind, there never was or will be an event more important. Then the announcer turns her attention on your kind self. You discover virtues you never had and learn about your accomplishments in life. If you happen to share your name with a person who topped IAS exactly fifteen years back (Anurag Srivastava, IAS, 1992), you always got credited for that. You feel like you are betraying them as Chief Guest.

You are dying to finish this fast and rush along with others to light the auspicious lamp to ceremonially inaugurate the event. They have put a nicely decorated beautiful lamp stand but nobody thought they may need a matchstick to light that. A kind soul discreetly brings out a cigarette lighter but the lamp has a mind of its own and takes its time to comply. It is followed by a cultural performance which is not bad but you stare at the back of the performer as she was facing the crowd.

The speeches begin and go on and on and since you are the chief guest, you get the privilege to speak at last. In the meantime, you have thought about this article’s draft, checked your social media messages myriads of time and you also found yourself napping a couple of times. Suddenly your name is announced and you rush towards the podium. As you hold the mike, you have forgotten the name of this event but you vaguely remember what it is all about. Also, you were haunted by their calls but now you do not recall name of any organiser. You mumble few words about how great this event was, how great were its organisers and basically how great all of us are. You thank them for considering you worthy of this job but you only see yawning faces in front, as bored as you are.

The organisers still diligently clap when you end. You want to run away but they are profusely thankful that you could make it to the event and hold you on for a cup of tea. There you are made to swallow a plate full of desserts (read calories) and you promise to yourself that you will not commit this mistake ever again in your life.

Next day you commit yourself to another event.

PS: This is an exaggerated version of all what actually goes around. The writer, who incidentally is a District Magistrate, is profusely thankful to all the organisers who ever thought him to be worthy of being Chief Guest at their event :)