Among the Not So Great

Swimming

The controversies may be more bitter in this sport. The element being foreign to humans, his or her true colours were more easily bared. Not many relished this. In the olden days, before the Swimming Pool was even thought of, swimming in the sea was not permitted. We couldn’t even wet our feet in it. It was with Birenda that a few of us started the sea-swim craze. It grew until even up to a hundred swimmers or bathers were in the sea on a Sunday or a holiday. Very often, after a good oil massage, Birenda and some of us walked upto the Park Guest House (all along the beach — there was a beach then) and swam back to the Tennis Ground Beach. We had also to jump off the end of the 4-m-high old pier into the sea. This when we had hardly picked up the rudiments of swimming.

In 1957 the Swimming Pool was ready. The Mother opened it on Her birthday, the 21st of February. Birenda taught swimming in the Pool. The methods of teaching were more or less of the same forthrightness. There you are hanging in the water at one end of a rope tied round your waist. Birenda, on the deck, is holding the other end, supporting you to the degree he wants. This, on day one, two, three... till he judges that the rope can be discarded. Then, he is in the water and expects you to jump in and splash your way up to him or to the other side of the Pool. An involuntary gulp or two of water was of not much concern. If you had enough faith in him, you jumped in and no harm befell you. He saw to it. If no faith — and no jump... may the gods help you!