My Experiments with Swimming

You may think that it is impossible for a boy of a six feet two inch frame to drown in five feet of water. Let me tell you, at the outset, that it is possible.

Having drowned, well amost, in a five feet swimming pool, I decided to learn to swim. I enrolled at the swimming pool at Anna University. The coach tried to teach me leg movements of the breast stroke. I kicked and I kicked hard for twelve days and could not even float. On the thirteenth day the coach thought that only fate could get me to swim. Thus, he made me dive in the the deepest part of the pool which was well over ten feet deep. I protested, he did not relent and got me to jump in to the pool. I jumped praying all the while to make God take me through this episode alive and in one piece. I jumped in and wallowed in the pool drinking large quanitites of chlorine water. I thought I would not be thirty for a week. I puked, well almost and felt sick. That was the last day I saw of the coach and the swimming pool at Anna Univeristy. I could not tell which was worse-drowning in five feet of water or trying to learn how to swim and the coach almost drowning you. The moral of the story was that I survived but did not learn to swim.

About two weeks ago I enrolled, again, in a course called "Learn to Swim" at the Tamil Nadu Sports Development Authority Complex. Twelve days later I could swim with much confidence and to top it all I have picked up three of the four genres of swimming. I managed to learn the freestyle stoke, the breast stoke and the back stroke. The coach, Mr Verra, at TN SDAT was brilliant. He got everybody in my batch to swim. I think I should take up the membership of the the TN SDAT to hone my swimming skills. Mr Phelps now is the time when you should start getting worried.