The feeling of learning to swim for the first time in life
I was born in a village, so I am a village boy.
I am always proud of it. Because, those who are born in the village are born in
the lap of nature and grow up in the infinite mercy of nature. Their minds are
generous like the sky. Hard work, truthfulness and fairness are among their
character traits.
Being a village boy, I learned to swim at a
very young age like five other children in the village. There was no shortage
of ponds in our village. They had three or four large ponds. One of the ponds
was very big. He can be called almost long.
The name of this pond was "Big Pond".
So the big pond was really big. The distance from one bank to another bank is
like 300-400 yards. On the bank of this pond was a huge banyan tree and on the
other bank was a big tamarind tree. Centuries old banyan trees and tamarind
trees fell one day in a huge cyclone. Very childhood talk. I don't remember
much.
The bank of this pond was re-tied and a large
pond was constructed. I clearly remember, "Established year 1403" was
clearly written on the ghat, which means that the ghat was built in Bengali
1403. I was probably five or six years old then, I don't remember exactly. As a
result of building the ghat, the desire to swim is very intense, that's all I
remember.
My mother had no interest in me learning to
swim at such a young age. But, I didn't want to take a bath with my mother's
hands in the water taken from the pond every day. I wanted to splash water with
other boys and jump from the platform of the ghat. Besides, everyone my age
could swim. Seeing them playing hide and seek in the water would make my chest
burst with rage.
So almost every day I used to ask my mother to
learn how to swim. My mother used to say this, give me false promises and
assurances. And I could only cry. So this is how I spend my days. In the
meantime, one day my father saw him very dangerously picking up a football from
the pond. If I try to lift something from the water without knowing how to swim,
if I fall, I will definitely drown in the water.
Realizing this, my father started trying to
teach me how to swim without grumbling. Perhaps Dad realized that keeping an
eye on me all the time or forbidding me to go into the water - there was really
no point in doing these things. The only solution is to teach me to swim.
My "learning to swim" started the
next day. During the bath, father took me into the water. He used to lift me up
to chest water and keep me floating in the water with my hands under my stomach
and chest. And I used to throw my feet into the water. Father did this for 4-5
days. In just 4-5 days my fear of water disappeared. Gradually I learned to
jump in the water with my feet and to push the water from both sides with my
hands.
For the next few days, Baba would bring me to
the bottom of the ghat, which was half submerged in water, and release me into
the shallow water. I used to hold the last step of the ghat which was under the
water with one hand and threw my two legs desperately and kept the body
floating on the water. Hmm, I did. This is how I was able to keep myself
afloat. I was very happy that day.
After spending 2-3 more days like this, Baba
did a strange thing. A pair of dried coconuts (Jhuno) was made by tying the two
coconuts with a knot and making a strange thing. Now take the two coconuts in
the water and release them. They both floated beautifully. After that, my
father left me with my stomach on top of the knot.
I screamed in fear at first. Later I saw two
giant coconuts floating half-submerged on either side of my stomach, floating
me completely. The fear disappeared instantly. Now I slowly started jumping in
the water with my feet and cut the water on both sides with my hands and
started moving forward. I floated towards the deep water. Of course, my father
was coming next to me. This is a strange, indescribable moment. One of the most
memorable moments of my life.
That was the day I discovered that I had
learned to swim. Two coconuts just to boost my courage. Even without those two,
I can swim just fine. I remember that day I was screaming with happiness. I
can't say how happy I was.
I swam with coconut floats for the next week,
but nothing happened after that. I became a great expert in backstroke,
vertical swimming, floating swimming, diving swimming. I would not get out of
the water until my eyes were red.
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