1. Swimming : Have rediscovered the joys of swimming. Its great fun, not too tiring and a great way to tone up. Why didn't we get club membership earlier? Why didn't I quit my job earlier? That said I managed to enjoy the pool for about a month before the weather changed in Bombay and it became too cold for a morning swim. Have always enjoyed swimming -started at 2 years in Singapore where my dad used to play Po Ba with me. Then when we moved to Delhi he taught me how to swim in the Delhi Gymkhana pool. But I was not confident enough to go in the deep end and used to do breadths in the shallow end only. Then one summer my cousin and I went for swimming coaching classes at the Jayanagar pool in Bangalore. That was an Olympic size pool and the coach was relentless- he used to make us take the paddle and do lengths up and down continously. He also taught the correct way to do freestyle- breathing once in five strokes by raising your head to the side. My cousin and I used to be quite terrified of him since he used to pinch us if we slacked around in the pool, and I remember getting butterflies in my stomach on the way to the swimming classes. But they were really good and when I got back to Delhi I could confidently do lengths and even took part in the swimming gala and won a couple of medals! That year we also moved to our Senior school in Delhi which had an Olympic sized pool and weekly swimming classes for us. I was asked to come for extra coaching in the evenings, and I remember the first evening I went I was overawed by the 12-12th standard boys and girls diving from the highest diving boards. But the extra classes were very strenous, and my mom was not struct enough to make me go (partly because we were anyway moving to London at the end of the year, and partly because I was getting a cold very often because of the evening swimming, but mainly I was too lazy and got away with it. Now I really regret that and wish I had stuck it out, my freestyle could have improved significantly, and maybe I would've learnt some other styels). We kept up the swimming in London, going to the local swimming pool. I remember we had a small accident and a huge fight with the owner of another car, once when we were driving out to the pool. The car owner worked for a taxi comapny, and even though it was a small scrap he staretd yelling and abusing and we got quite scared. It was only my mom and me and nobody came to support us, and finally my brother had to come and calm him down. Then when we shifted back to delhi, we continued with the bi weekly swims to Delhi Gymkhana. After college, i completely lost touch with swimming, at mba college there was not much time for swimming and Bangalore was too cold to swim most of the year, and ever since I've started working in Bombay I've never had good access to a club with a swimming (too expensive to take membership to a club near the house, and the one which is reciprocating with the Delhi Gymkhana where I have membership takes an hour to reach from the house). But now the new club is close to the house and swimming there is great fun, as the pool is not too crowded on weekdays . Only now suddenly Bombay has become too cold to go swimming in the mornings and afternoons i still try to grab some shut eye.
2. Book lovers and sports enthusiasts : Have been wondering is it possible to be both? Or even common to be both? When i look around at most of my friends/colleagues/relatives I find either book lovers or sports enthusiasts, or neither. But rarely both. Most of my friends are book lovers and manage to fit in books into their hectic schedules of work/looking after kids/travel etc and are up to date on the latest authors/trends etc. But they are not really into sports, I don't mean that they are not fit or anything, many of them gym/workout etc, but dont play a port for fun/watch sports on TV. Even when they were young they would not take part in many sporting activities. On the other hand my family is more sports oriented. My brother played many sports when he was younger and even now plays cricket when he gets a chance. He watches most sports on TV. My parents also follow cricket, tennis keenly, but are not great book lovers. As for me, I have always been more into sports. In my London school I was part of the school netball team, and my class rounders and athletics team. When we came back to Delhi I used to represent my house in all athletic events ranging from 100 m upto 800 m, long jump, discuss etc. I even stood for sports captain, but lost to a national level athlete. I still think I would have made a better sports captain as its more about organising sports activities/training students rather than being a winner yourself. On the other hand my reading habits are abysmal. I rarely pick up books to read, preferring to watch TV if i get some spare time. I like thrillers best, but recently have found I lack the patience to read them fully. After about halfway I skip to the end to see what happens and then resume mid way if I find it interesting or just give up and move to the next book. I think its a lack of concentration and patience to finish books. Sports are just more exciting and finish faster. I think its rare for a person to be a book lover and a sports enthusiast, but that's just what I think. What do you feel?
That's it for now. Happy new year to all.
3 comments:
Remember out Gymkhanna 'swims'. I think we spent more time lounging and gossiping in the pool :)
Also the car rides home listening to loud music, mainly from Padosan I think!!
That too :)
Post a Comment