Today was the day I was supposed to beat all odds at the swimming pool. Today was the day I was supposed to complete one entire length of the pool without pausing or floundering. Today was the day I was supposed to shift from the slow lane to the fast lane. But, today was also the day I saw the still body of a swimmer by the side of the pool. Dang!
Before your heart rate crawls to a dull pace, let me assure you that they got the chap out breathing and moving and all that. All thanks to well trained emergency personnel.
I remember entering the pool complex, with my heart thumping with gusto and adrenaline pumping through my veins. All pumped up, is the feeling I am trying to convey. But, one look at that near lifeless body lying there, curled up in a fetal position, with uniformed folk peering at it, and that was enough to knock the wind out of me. My thoughts at this point were "Anish, ol' boy. No laps today. No frontier conquering bravado. Stick to the usual swim-to-the-start-of-the-deep-side-and-come-back." Geez, I was so sick of that. Anyway, it was a man. I couldn't make out at first, because he was all wrapped up in silver foil. Yeah, you read it right. Silver foil. It's the first time I've seen that been used. I suppose its better than blankets, though I'm really not sure. He stirred about while the emergency personnel hoisted him onto the stretcher and wheeled him away. The good Dutch folk in the pool waved and said their good-bye's. Something that I found weird but familiar at the same time. Dutch folk always make it a point to say 'Hello' and 'Goodbye'. No matter what. The poor chappie blinked twice, looked around hazily and tried to return the greeting as the stretcher rolled out of sight. Needless to say, swimming was forgotten and everyone in the pool was engaged in curious chatter. The dutch friend I was with picked up some of the conversation and he informed me later that it seemed like the poor guy had a brain hemorrhage.
But we did swim that day. I, to the slow lane with my cautious swimming style and he to the fast lane with his own brand of swimming. I still remember coming here the first time. It was a tad weird being the only brown skinned chap in a pool with all the white folk. But I wasn't hassled or anything. Being dutch, all the folk in the pool decided to adopt their typical NIMBY attitude. Don't know what NIMBY is? Well, it stands for Not In My Back Yard. Thus far it seems to have served the Dutch people well and I think (personally) this is what has led to general tolerance in the Netherlands (tolerance for soft drugs, the innumerable foreigners, that sort of thing). I mean, its nice and all that, but after a while you begin to wonder if that's the way things should be done. But that's a discussion for another time. In this case of the pool, Back Yard would mean "small space where I(=dutch person) can perform my swimming moves" By the way, Back Yard is kind of a metaphor. What's that? You've figured that part out yourself? Ok, smarty-pants.
My reputation quickly dropped from foreigner-in-the-pool to floundering-foreigner-in-the-shallow-end-of-the-pool. Kinda humiliating. Indeed, I've had people come to me and ask gentle questions such as "What are you doing?", "Do you know how to float?" and other such queries. But apart from that there was no typical Anish-esq incident designed to bring the house down with laughter. I generally stayed out of people's way and they in turn appreciated it. It was, of course, the right thing to do. I mean, you wouldn't like it if some noob swimmer started splashing around while you were doing some serious laps now, would you? This brings to mind a typical stunt a good friend of mine from Bangalore used to pull when he was surrounded by noobs in the pool. He'd switch to the breast stroke while passing the noob he'd decided to punish and then use the frog kick to inflict maximum damage to the hapless victim. Obviously, the whole thing is meant to look like an accident.
Noob Swimmer: Owww!Hey, that hurt!
Evil Friend: Eh? How do you mean? I'm just swimming here.
Noob Swimmer: Oh, ah. Carry on then.
Evil Friend: (Swims away, chuckling evilly underwater.)
Of course, a frog kick to the crotch would mean manslaughter/attempted murder charges. Ghastly we Indians are, eh? Well, nothing like this happens here but still, I'm wary of these frog kicker swimmers.
But there was actually one time when I did the entire pool length. It was the second time I visited the pool, I think. I bucked myself up no end and took off like a shark. The thing with these shark-like starts are that their pace generally slows down to that of a middle aged crayfish. So I floundered on bravely...until I decided to grab some air. Now, I'm one of these heavy chaps, whose floating equilibrium in water is incredibly delicate. You know the - head comes up, feet go down - type. So my head went up and..... Gosh, the sheer panic that rippled through me was one for the memoirs. And the crappy part was, all my floundering wasn't helping in any way. I was stuck, my head bobbing just below the water's surface. I couldn't go up to grab some much needed air, nor could I go down to the bottom and do the Superman lift off trick. Just frigging stuck. It would have been a lousy way to go. But I did make it to the side of the pool and did pull myself up just in time to grab some sweet, sweet Oxygen.
Well, I guess, the only thing to do is wait for the next time. And the next time I'm gonna touch the opposite wall of the pool.
Before your heart rate crawls to a dull pace, let me assure you that they got the chap out breathing and moving and all that. All thanks to well trained emergency personnel.
I remember entering the pool complex, with my heart thumping with gusto and adrenaline pumping through my veins. All pumped up, is the feeling I am trying to convey. But, one look at that near lifeless body lying there, curled up in a fetal position, with uniformed folk peering at it, and that was enough to knock the wind out of me. My thoughts at this point were "Anish, ol' boy. No laps today. No frontier conquering bravado. Stick to the usual swim-to-the-start-of-the-deep-side-and-come-back." Geez, I was so sick of that. Anyway, it was a man. I couldn't make out at first, because he was all wrapped up in silver foil. Yeah, you read it right. Silver foil. It's the first time I've seen that been used. I suppose its better than blankets, though I'm really not sure. He stirred about while the emergency personnel hoisted him onto the stretcher and wheeled him away. The good Dutch folk in the pool waved and said their good-bye's. Something that I found weird but familiar at the same time. Dutch folk always make it a point to say 'Hello' and 'Goodbye'. No matter what. The poor chappie blinked twice, looked around hazily and tried to return the greeting as the stretcher rolled out of sight. Needless to say, swimming was forgotten and everyone in the pool was engaged in curious chatter. The dutch friend I was with picked up some of the conversation and he informed me later that it seemed like the poor guy had a brain hemorrhage.
But we did swim that day. I, to the slow lane with my cautious swimming style and he to the fast lane with his own brand of swimming. I still remember coming here the first time. It was a tad weird being the only brown skinned chap in a pool with all the white folk. But I wasn't hassled or anything. Being dutch, all the folk in the pool decided to adopt their typical NIMBY attitude. Don't know what NIMBY is? Well, it stands for Not In My Back Yard. Thus far it seems to have served the Dutch people well and I think (personally) this is what has led to general tolerance in the Netherlands (tolerance for soft drugs, the innumerable foreigners, that sort of thing). I mean, its nice and all that, but after a while you begin to wonder if that's the way things should be done. But that's a discussion for another time. In this case of the pool, Back Yard would mean "small space where I(=dutch person) can perform my swimming moves" By the way, Back Yard is kind of a metaphor. What's that? You've figured that part out yourself? Ok, smarty-pants.
My reputation quickly dropped from foreigner-in-the-pool to floundering-foreigner-in-the-shallow-end-of-the-pool. Kinda humiliating. Indeed, I've had people come to me and ask gentle questions such as "What are you doing?", "Do you know how to float?" and other such queries. But apart from that there was no typical Anish-esq incident designed to bring the house down with laughter. I generally stayed out of people's way and they in turn appreciated it. It was, of course, the right thing to do. I mean, you wouldn't like it if some noob swimmer started splashing around while you were doing some serious laps now, would you? This brings to mind a typical stunt a good friend of mine from Bangalore used to pull when he was surrounded by noobs in the pool. He'd switch to the breast stroke while passing the noob he'd decided to punish and then use the frog kick to inflict maximum damage to the hapless victim. Obviously, the whole thing is meant to look like an accident.
Noob Swimmer: Owww!Hey, that hurt!
Evil Friend: Eh? How do you mean? I'm just swimming here.
Noob Swimmer: Oh, ah. Carry on then.
Evil Friend: (Swims away, chuckling evilly underwater.)
Of course, a frog kick to the crotch would mean manslaughter/attempted murder charges. Ghastly we Indians are, eh? Well, nothing like this happens here but still, I'm wary of these frog kicker swimmers.
But there was actually one time when I did the entire pool length. It was the second time I visited the pool, I think. I bucked myself up no end and took off like a shark. The thing with these shark-like starts are that their pace generally slows down to that of a middle aged crayfish. So I floundered on bravely...until I decided to grab some air. Now, I'm one of these heavy chaps, whose floating equilibrium in water is incredibly delicate. You know the - head comes up, feet go down - type. So my head went up and..... Gosh, the sheer panic that rippled through me was one for the memoirs. And the crappy part was, all my floundering wasn't helping in any way. I was stuck, my head bobbing just below the water's surface. I couldn't go up to grab some much needed air, nor could I go down to the bottom and do the Superman lift off trick. Just frigging stuck. It would have been a lousy way to go. But I did make it to the side of the pool and did pull myself up just in time to grab some sweet, sweet Oxygen.
Well, I guess, the only thing to do is wait for the next time. And the next time I'm gonna touch the opposite wall of the pool.
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