Realizations, 5 Feet Under

The heading should have precisely been Realizations, 5 feet under water. Well, yes, it literally means so. Let me shoot straight to the core - the thought came to me while swimming underwater in our community swimming pool in this gorgeous township.

If you have swam before, you must have had a complete dip into the water at times. But have you ever experienced pensiveness down there? Just keep your eyes, ears and mind open and let the eternal thought process flow seamlessly through you while u are disconnected completely from the delusional world by the holier state of matter.

What do you see underwater? Tranquility. What do you hear under water? Serenity. This (I think) could be the most proximate emotion to statelessness that I have ever met, and highly susceptible to drowning too if prolonged (bad one, I know).

Well I did have an epiphany once. And what else could it be about, but the dreaded feeling of Fear (confused with apprehension a lot of time by a lot of people). No sir, apprehension is just another euphemistic term, it’s FEAR. And I had been burdened by this devil for a long time.

Let me tell you a story. Back in the new year’s eve of 1999, little Me was just 9 years. He went with his parents to enjoy the new year to a blooming resort in the famous city of Puri. One fine morning at the resort, he and his elder sister went into the resort’s pool. The boy was carried away to see so many people enjoying a nice swim, and took a dunk into the water himself. Little did he know that he drifted slowly to the deeper side of the pool, and when he could not hold his breath any longer, tried to come out.

He was panicking, and struggling for life, for air, for someone to get him the hell out of there. And his struggle for the surface rather countered his efforts.

Miraculously, a divine hand grabbed him and pulled him out only just in time to gasp in any state of matter, and luckily, it was the life giving air. 

He was saved by his sis that day. But never dared enter into water again (Hydrophobia?).

But later, under immense pressure of his awesome parents, he was compelled to learn the 2 most essential skills in life, Driving and Swimming. He was able to learn driving almost on his own in a matter of days after his 10^th in 2006, but tried hard to stay away from the pool. Later in 2009, after repetitive threats from his tangible Gods, he landed up taking membership at Kalinga Swimming Pool, BBSR in the summers along with his cousin brother.

          Kalinga Stadium Swimming Pool in Bhubaneswar

The horror was alive but time was finite and no options out. It was probably the most terrifying days of his life, the initial days of learning swimming. But with constant instigation, harsh aggravation and nurtured motivation, he was finally able to survive a lap in the Olympic standard isled arena. And swimming was no more a challenge for him.

Those were the days, and there’s today, I never forget to enjoy a quick dive into the pool whenever possible. However, the fear in me isn’t dead yet, oh no. It gives me chills till date to be in there. It’s like a 1/X function, never reaching 0 until infinity. Every time I go under water, I conquer a fraction of it, trying to overcome the emotion, step by step, closing the gap inch by inch, in a hope to befriend the deep.

But this devil friend of mine has helped me realize the constant fear that we live in our day-to-day lives. As soon as am off the blue, the residual terror makes me vulnerable to intense revelations, and I see the bigger horror picture that most of us overlook. The fear of life, the fear of love, fear of being lonely, fear of being deserted, disheartened, fear of performing let alone improving, fear of results, fear of conviction, the society, wealth, inability, incapability, incompatibility, incomprehensibility, unemployability, unreliability, deniability, vulnerability … X, Y & Z. And above all, fear of the future. And this makes me want to go back under, which surprisingly seems to be a better situation than this. Evasiveness? I thought so. I could only run, but how can I escape? So I realized, for me and for all, for now and forever, for here, there any everywhere – it’s time to rise [Mahindra], shine [Honda], and make the move my friend, make the move [Fiat].

Though that was a bad closure (apparently), it was never meant to be one. You see, fear has no conclusion, it is endlessly learnt, and incubated, but suppressible. Now that’s a closure. BTW, as I had said before, apprehension and fear, both the same to me. Read the second line of the previous paragraph replacing fear with apprehension, you will get what I mean…