My Swimming Journey: How It All Started
My swimming journey was circumstantial and started in the 1990s. With both parents working in a city like Bombay meant that I, all of eight years, had to be home alone. The concept of latchkey kid, though popular then, did not go down too well with my parents who then decided to enroll me for two hours of splashing around in water in the ‘ladies’ batch at the local swimming pool.
After a few months of actually paddling from one end of the pool to the other, the initial excitement wore off. Self-made games such as “Staying under the water for the longest time” “Going to the deepest part of the pool without a float” “Jumping off the highest diving board” were invented along with a group of other girls till the authorities thought we were creating more havoc than necessary. Anything other than pure ‘swimming’ in the pool was banned. The charm of the afternoon sessions was lost and one day the appointed life guard asked me if I wanted a “Swimmer” stamp on my monthly pass. The authorities had come up with an incentive for interested people where you have to cover 20 laps to and fro without halting or touching the edges of the pool, or else you are disqualified.
And since I had lost interest in the ordinary swimming routine, I signed up for it. After practicing for a couple of weeks, I went home with a blue “S” shaped stamped surrounded by a star shaped margin on my pool pass. Along with it, was a note for my parents asking them to come and meet the life guard. Mom left early from work the next day and was present at the pool expecting some sort of complaint. While I was told to jump into the pool and go on with my usual swimming activities, she and the life guard seemed to be in deep conversation pointing to me once in a while.
Apparently the said gentleman saw potential in me. After all, no other kid came to the pool without missing a single day and also begged to be allowed to swim without float, in the deepest end all the time.
What followed was just a change in batch timings but little did I know that from that moment on my life, as a normal child, ended. The pool, my stroke, my timings, my coach’s instructions became my main obsession. It is no surprise that when I try to think of my school days, there isn’t much that I can recollect except for being punished for not having homework completed or found sleeping in class. And this was mainly because of spending early mornings and entire evenings by the pool.
There were times when I missed my exams because the state and national level competitions mostly coincided with these but then returning to friends and teachers greeting you with hugs and smiles and lovely charts that held up your name made up for it.
