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 10th 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…
