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Learning to Swim
Ben Antao
As an eight-year-old, Joe saw with wild-eyed astonishment the young
adults of his village jump into the monsoon-swollen, dusky community
well to celebrate the feast day of John the Baptist on June 24. And when
they resurfaced at the top, they emitted joyous cries as though glad to
be alive, tossing their heads to inhale fresh air.
Whenever Joe went to Veller (now called Mabor beach), he tried hard to
swim over the cresting waves of the Arabian sea even as his mother
cautioned him not to go deep into the water. But the young boy seemed
eager to learn to swim at any cost.
When the family moved to Margao, Joe got his first lesson in swimming, a
baptism of sorts. He was fourteen and had gone to watch a group of
teenagers from his school race one another in the water-logged fields in
the Borda area after the paddy was harvested at monsoon’s end. Some of
the older guys were accomplished swimmers and they ploughed through the
lake, unmindful of the remnants of paddy stalks and water lilies.
A couple of pre-teenagers squealed in pleasure as they jumped in and
emerged out of a well beside the red dirt road leading from Borda to
Borim. At four o’clock in the afternoon with the September sun smiling
on these exuberant fun-seekers, Joe, looking at the well and the lake
beyond, felt lachrymose that he had to be the spectator and not the
participant.
Then Vitorino from the same Almeida’s school called out, after
completing his 100-yard freestyle. “Joe, why don’t you take a plunge in
the well?”
“I don’t know how to swim.”
“Then I’ll teach you.”
“Will you?”
“Of course, get ready.”
Gangly Joe took off his half-sleeved bush shirt and his brown shoes.
With his khaki shorts on, he approached the parapet of the well and
peered down. Unlike the one in his village, this was a deeper well with
a narrower circumference. “What do I do?”
“Just take a deep breath and jump,” said Vitorino.
“And then?”
“And then you’ll come up.”
“No, no,” said a boy nearby who had already made a few jumps earlier.
“When your feet touch the bottom, flap your arms like this,” he said,
imitating the crow’s motion.
“At the same time, move your legs up and down,” said another boy, “as if
you’re pedaling a bicycle.”
“Plus I have to hold my breath?” said Joe.
“Don’t confuse him,” said Vitorino. “Just watch me.” He jumped and a few
seconds later came up. “See, it’s easy. I’ll stay here to hold you,” he
said from the middle of the well.
Joe felt confident that Vitorino who was a couple of years older than he
would do his part. He jumped with his eyes closed. It seemed forever
until his feet touched a muddy bottom and then he raised his hand and,
miraculously it seemed to him, his right hand was caught by his coach.
“How does it feel?”
“I don’t know. Nervous.”
“Try again.”
On the third jump, Joe got the hang of it as he instinctively pedaled
his feet and flapped his arms. A surge of exhilaration swept over him
and he was excited to discover his new potential, an adolescent crossing
a new threshold of experience.
Ben Antao
August
8, 1999
c1999 Ben Antao
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