My Swiming Lessons

A non swimmer can enter the Indian Army but the Army won't allow one to remain a non swimmer for long. Once again owing to having been born and brought up at Shimla, I did not know swimming when i entered Army and also was not imparted training in swimming in the OTA because the swimming pool had just been inaugurated as we were passing out from the Officers' Training Academy. I tried my hand in swimming at our regimental centre where i stayed for about fifteen days before reporting to my unit in Nagaland. During the swimming practice in the regimental centre swimming pool i would swim the full length but only by holding my breath as i could not establish coordination between my strokes and my breathing. While the instructors would admonish me for not making the right moves they would also express surprise over my capacity to hold my breath for so long under water.

Luckily i was deputed to undergo a course in Physical Training at Army School of Physical Training, Pune within just three months of my reporting to my Unit. There it was that i learnt full fledged swimming. I along with some other officers was declared weak swimmer and would have to go for swimming practice in addition to attending the regular training schedule. It was quite an embarrassing  experience, not because we were singled out as weak swimmers but because three grown up daughters (almost our age) of the Commandant of the ASPT also used to come for swimming at the same time.  While their presence in the swimming pool offered a pleasant company to us young bachelor officers in our early twenties, it also threw a challenge to us as those girls were good swimmers and accelerated us towards our goal of becoming good swimmers fast.

Although i could swim for the full length of the pool of International dimensions but i could do it only by holding my breath as mentioned earlier. The swimming instructor suggested that i should wear the safety tube and learn coordinating my strokes with my breathing. I did that and found to my delight that by wearing the tube i was breathing perfectly well while swimming across the full length of the pool. One day to my greatest delight and surprise i learnt that while i was swimming very well making perfect coordination between my strokes and the my breath, the tube that i was wearing had actually deflated and it was acting only as a placebo. I removed the tube and threw it out of the pool towards the instructor who smiled at me approvingly. Eureka!! i had learnt swimming. While i was happy in being taken off the list of weak swimmers, i also felt sad in loosing the pleasant company of the swimming pool.