Driving down with friend Srini to his beautiful farm in the neighbouring Hosur in Tamil Nadu on a lazy Sunday morning was an exhilarating experience.
The undulating terrain with lots of trees and small lakes was breath-taking.
As we approached the land with the more than hundred-year old house still in shape where Srini's grandfather was born, the circle was complete for him.
As soon as we alighted from the car the first thing that struck me was the mango orchard. With mango season in full flow, it was a delight to see the mangoes hanging from the trees almost touching the ground. The air was clean and crisp though the afternoon Tamil Nadu heat was just beginning to burn our backs. Walking in the orchards with hardly a human in sight was itself a unique experience.
One familiar sight in villages like this is that of the children diving into the village well with carefree abandon and enjoying themselves to the hilt.
Renowned photo journalist T S Satyan has captured in black and white the boys diving into the water, which many later have tried to copy. But the reason why I narrate this swimming episode is because it jogged my memory to the times when I was learning swimming in one of the posh swimming pools in Mysore, the CFTRI campus.
They say there are two things you can never forget in your life once you learn it. One is cycling and another is swimming. But, here I am, one of the few persons in the world to have forgotten how to swim after learning it diligently for over a year through rain and shine and through cold winter evenings. The coach there first made me do leg beatings and I was an expert at it, as I really did not have to enter deep waters.
I no doubt love the beaches, the flowing streams, the amazing rivers, but when it comes to swimming, I am a no go. This I realised after I tried swimming in the Ganga waters near Kanpur and to my horror discovered that the one-year training had come to nothing and I almost drowned.
After that I never venture near the water again. Except to watch wistfully the daring dives that the kids did at the farm.
If only these kids are discovered then we could find many a Mark Spitz's amidst us.