19- My DIVE

19- My Dive

July 2002- I am looking at my toes at the edge of the pool, arms hanging limply by the side. Narindar the coach, shouts,” Madam taango ke beech mein se peeche dekhiye or kood jaiye”. I look between my unshapely legs, conscious of the bulging thighs beneath the tight black costume that I had bought from New York in 1994 when I was feeling ‘young and slim’ and assumed I would always be so. Pali my friend in the pool shouted, “come Veena Jump”. I focused at the depth of the water in my head without looking in, still focusing actually at the wobbly knees , bent them a bit, pushed the edge with the toes and WOW , WENT deep, head in and then all else----

Summer of 1958- Father pushed us to do the most, learn the most------ unlike mother who would have preferred nice coy homely girls. So the Herd of us teenage daughters of the 2 families joined ‘Swimming’ in the morning and Driving at noon. Floating on our back quickly followed treading/ cycling in the deep. The Coach would pull each of us by turn almost cradling the body ON HIS. Strange bulges underneath, strange movements, strange discoveries and strange feelings, confusing and frightening to say the least. Today those bulges of Anatomy of the Male are no more strange but that was ‘some plunge into the ‘Waters deep’.

Becoming Doctors in 1965- M.Azad Hostel to trips to the NSCI pool with Kusum, Bimla, Ina, Rajinder and Shashi. Splashes in the Rain with hot Tea and Pakodas on the side.

‘The first serious LIFE DIVE-1966’ Marriage

Honey Moon at GOA -1967– The Sea around was stormy, the waves relentless. I conceived ‘to be Divya’.

Isle of Wight, UK- 1968- Hovercrft rides from Southhampton and Portsmouth with Divya in our laps and then toddling around. We were with the Brits.

London- 1970- 1st trip trip to Europe with the Sabharwals after crossing the English Channel from Dover in his car. Brussels, Bonn, Cologne, Munich, Vienna the awesome, Salzburg, Innsbruck in Austria, lake Lucerne, Zurich, Geneva in Switzerland, picnics by the Autobahns, bed and breakfasts and finally unfriendly and exorbitant Paris with the famous Eiffel, Moulin rouge, German Beer and French wine.

Edgeware-1971- our first owned home. Trips to the Sea at Brighton, Blackpool, Norwich, Yarmouth, Inverness, Lochness with the monster, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen of Scotland and Cardiff at Wales------ Arrival of Karan.
I take Divya to the indoor pool and teach her to swim in the shallow end. A baby book dares me to dip Karan, face in, in the bath-tub at home while I practice blowing bubbles in the same tub.

US of A here we come! Cincinnati- 1976- We buy a home with our own pool. B’day parties galore and splashing in, from the circular ‘slide’ all the kids in a row. Every one seems to be swimming and frolicking----- I begin to slowly sink in my personal life ????
Psychiatry helps me stay afloat, or so it seems!!!!

Birmingham- 1980—I determine to stay afloat !!!!
Tommy Charles had custom built a beautiful White Ranch house. It was in the 13th elitest, affluent, part of the US called Mountain Brook. We were the first semibrown family to move in. Azaleas and Camillias filled the surroundings; Dogflower Branches hung outside the large picture windows. The heated pool with multiple color lights sat in the midst of a large deck overhung by picturesque Weeping willows. Wrought Iron chairs below and tall dense pines of the surrounding hillside above. All the bedrooms opened towards the pool with sliding glass doors. The shimmering rays of Sun falling on the water played on the walls inside.
First Rebecca, then Bernice and then Lilian took care of the family.
I began to sink again----!!!!!

1982-Sugar beeches of Florida and the Gulf coast. The sand was lovely, the sea devouring---- the salt would choke me and the waves were drowning me------
The Shrimps, the whiskey, the cigarettes---I walked alone on the sand at Sunrise, I thought alone on the sand at Sunset------

1984-I inhaled deep. A master stroke and I land at Sundar Nagar , Delhi. I walked alone in the by-lanes recovering from the ‘loss’, loss of my marriage, work, my beautiful home, the new adopted country, also my Uterus after a Hysterectomy of 10 days------ Karan kept me going. I began to surface from ‘my inner depth’.

1985- Divya graduated from Mountain Brook High, the first Indian. Karan and I took a trip for the graduation via the Pacific crossing the International midnight zone and reliving a day. From Gieshas of Tokyo to Disney land at Los Angeles where Shashi, Mona and Dips joined us. We toured the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas my favorite, picked up Divya from Birmingham, Panama city, Orlando with Disney world and returned via Hong-Kong and Macao back to Delhi.

1995- Baden-baden in the Snow with Bittony whom I escorted because of her flight Phobia. The 12 Baths in a row (coming from the Roman tradition of beauty) with changing temps. and variable speeds from gently flowing rivulets to thunderous falls like the Niagra had to be experienced from ‘Skin to Bone’ to be believed.

1998- Kusum hurt her knee. We spent 10 days by the Atlantic at Amagansett, The Hamptons, and Long Island, New York (Bill Clinton visited the neighbors).
Also experienced the Amazing Gulf of the Arabian Sea at Abu-Dhabi with the Pingles and Muscat with Manish while coming and going.

2000-Attending Psych. meets with friend V Garyali became ‘meetings of the mind, Brain and soul’. Guwahati in the East, Goa in the West, Arunachal in the North and Kanya-Kumari in the South where the Waters of the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean inter-mingle and become one at the Vivekananda’s Rock.

2002- I drag my still slumbering bones to the pool of my local club and try to wiggle in the deep to whispers from within ‘wakey-wakey’!
A splash! a giggle! Another splash, a group of teenage ‘budding’ girls, are here on ‘special off’ from School to practice for their inter-School Swim contest. ‘I wake up’.
Each is perfecting her own ‘Stroke’. The tall one is fast with the ‘free style’, the plumpy one is bobbing up and down in her Canary yellow cap doing the ‘Butterfly’, the littlest, never mind the absence of the breasts dives in doing the Breast- stroke and last, I spot a lean and lanky green spotty costume on her ‘back’ trying to catch up with the others in spite of the disadvantaged position. They are full of Zeal to get ahead, fast, quick---be the first— ‘in the School contest’.
“Don’t stop to look”, the Swim coach yells, “keep going, take a breath, put your head in and kick hard”.

I kick hard too; kick hard to get to my next goal.

Veena