Its summer time and the water is warm. This is the time to
start your swimming again. Jispa was telling me that you will now struggle with
your water feel and you will not enjoy the swim if you restart swimming after a
long time. She is right. Water feel is a real issue in swimming. You tend to
get water feel after a few swims and you get a feel of the water as you glide
past pushing it behind. It’s like timing in cricket, there is no way to get it
by theory but when you do get it you realize you have the gift and then you
keep going. After a layover many batsmen work on it in the nets to get the timing
and then they struggle to retain it. The batsman who are called gifted are the
ones who just have it in them from the start and seem to effortlessly get it at
all times. They may not score runs but they always time the ball and hence we
call them gifted. I think water feel is the swimming equivalent of being in
form and timing the ball.
I have always struggled getting back into the water and
getting back into top shape. Somehow the water doesn’t feel right and the body doesn’t
respond well to it. I end up struggling to hit the level of work out
performance that I was capable of before the break. It was very difficult for
me to understand it but Jispa summed it up pretty amazingly for me and called it
water feel.
I entered the water and swam with Jispa for a while. She is
a joy to watch in the water that she makes her own. While I swim on the surface
of the water she will dive and swim under me with her face to me and keep
blowing bubbles while kicks and moves ahead. It’s a really funny sight. Then I told
her to see me swim and help me correct my strokes. I was pretty impressed by
her instant correction points. Among other things she told me not to fight
water. “don’t fight water. Let it flow easily. Remember Finding Nemo movie
which said – fish are friend not food. Similarly Water is your friend not your
enemy. Don’t fight it. Be smooth. Get your motions to be smooth.” She was
right. I was pushing water to get ahead. I was trying to hold water and get it
behind me. Then I understood a bit about the legs movement and I found myself
moving quite faster and more “fludically” than before. Nice.
The best part was not just being able to swim better but the
fact that Jispa now could simply see me and correct me at a very, can I say
philosophical level? Not just the techincals of pulling the hand through,
kicking in a particular way or something, but moving while not fighting water. That
was one of the best advice I have ever received while swimming. Don’t fight the
water. Now every time I enter the water, I will swim knowing that I need fight
water but work with it. Water is not my enemy, it is my friend; and that this
was taught to me by my daughter. These learnings are worth their emotional and technical
weight.
Then she showed me something she figured about doing in
water. She went to the bottom of the pool and faced up, and then she blew
bobbles in the form of rings. These rings would then float to the surface. It
was awesome. I loved that she could do that. I too tried to do it and after a
few tries I did a swell job as well. Jasmine, as the judge agreed, that my
rings looked rounder than hers. That felt good.
As a teacher, I think the best thing is when your kids teach
you more and help you understand more. You love a kid who questions you and
then applies your learnings and pushes you to do better. And then you get the
feedback that this learning was applied here and this was the result. Teaching
without learning and learning without application is pretty much useless. You
have to constantly apply and see the result of your actions. That is good
learning. I have taught so many kids over the last 14 odd years. I remember
that I first started teaching when Jasmine was pregnant with Jispa. Over the
years, I have taught scores of kids and tried to explain various different
concepts to them. I don’t know what all I have taught but I hope that some kids
take away something interesting from all that. Some lesson that must have
struck some bell at some point. God only knows where and what. I see teaching as
a kind of social service or a social good. It is my way of giving back to
society something in a meaningful way. I hate giving money away for anything. I
prefer giving time and energy and knowledge. This true giving. Money seems to
be the simplest way but it’s not what I want.
One kid who worked at my friends start up, got friendly with
me as we worked professionally. AS she realized that I taught at schools, she
wanted to accompany me there and learn from my lectures. I was happy to have
her join the class. Looking at her even Jispa joined in. This kid seemed different. She had a
curiously strong urge to learn a lot and start applying. She listened made
notes and then started discussing my lectures with her colleagues and started
applying stuff at work. This was interesting and incredibly rewarding. She
would tell me on how what I taught was applied by her and how it affected her
work and her colleagues. How this enriched her environment and her job. That
felt nice. Slowly an acquaintance became a student and now a friend. I am sure
as she grows older and in stature the relationship will be grow more equal. Today
one of my best buddies is one lady who worked with me around ten years ago –
Sonal Shah. She too learnt a lot from me and I learnt a lot from her. We have
been with each other many times and I have even rehired her when I moved to a
new role.
These experiences helped shape me and give the joy from teaching.
Some kids will remember me and some will forget me and some will curse me
(hopefully few here). But at the end – if I can make a difference to at least
one in a class who can then affect others in turn and start a possible chain
reaction – that will be just so awesome.
Today in the morning while I was in the Gymkhana early after
dropping Jispa, I realized that it was the birthday of this new kid who has
been attending my lectures. I hate wishing happy birthday. It’s something
stupid and highly impersonal. I like writing a note. And when you have had a
groggy night thanks to the AC being switched off and then on again, with the fan
being full (that’s a old grouse with my wife), one tends to get a little
philosophical. And with that mood I wrote her a note. A long one for whatsapp. But I thought it
merited being reproduced here. It has enough lessons for me and for those who
read it and for it to be passed on. Here, groggy mornings can produce philosophers.
(I think I think best in my half dreams and in long showers. Really. Seriously)
----
Hey kid. I am not the one who likes wishing on birthdays. I
don't do that. I think it's stupid and a complete waste of time and energy. Too
many jokers who don't mean anything to me catch me and wish me and appear to
love me. Aaahhh.. but then don't let the cold of a damp 41 year old put water
on the red enthusiasm of a young 28 year old. (Did I get the age right).
Enjoy your birthday and your life. You have been an
amazingly great student for me. At some core level, I have found greatest joy
in teaching and imparting my learnings to people around me, that I care about
and those that care about me. In you I see someone who just wants to squeeze
maximum possible from me. That encourages me a lot. And in teaching you, in
talking to you, in discussion with you, I end up learning a whole lot myself. I
learn about my thoughts and that of a young turk. These thoughts are invaluable
as they are considered and honest. It's like a game I loved playing as a kid. I
would fling a crazy ball against the wall in the house and try and catch it on
the return. I would then impart spin to it and throw it and the catch it. It
was tough and an amazing fun game to play. I hope u know what a crazy ball is
and what happens when u fling it at a wall, with spin.
As you grow older you will realise that you have a debt to
pay. If I were to listen to you then you have a debt to pay on my account. I
seemed to have taught you a lot. My great guru, Dharen, never asked me for
anything but I still want to give me my right thumb. So, I think the best way
to pay him is to teach the world to be more considerate marketers, and through
that change the world. I think he would appreciate that the most.
Funnily, as I pay my debt in this way, it gives me greater
learning and greater Joy and the act of paying off the debt makes it
paradoxically larger. So, I have to pay it more and more. Never did I realise
that paying off an EMI on an usury would be so much rewarding.
Creating such a debt made my life rewarding. Very rewarding.
It allowed me to connect to lovely people like you and some others as well as
not so lovely people who turned out quite caustic in the end. But even a fire
that signed the child left him a message.
But like we all know the reward of playing with fire more than
compensates for the occasional burn.
I hope you find your debt and u find paying it
rewarding. I wish you many such debts of
joy. To receive and to repay. Hopefully they add meaning to your life the way
they added meaning to mine. And Dharen doesn't even know it that he can create
an angulimal from my many thumbs.
I wish I could wished for everlasting happiness and live and
everything that a fairy can offer. I am no fairy and you are no doe in front of
headlights.
Birthdays are a good time to be philosophical, both from a
receiver and a giver perspective. They have their uses afterall. A time to
reflect and to ponder. But then, not too much. It's more a time to soak in all
the unwanted, unrequited, unreal and unfelt love as well. There is perverse joy
in that as well. Enjoy that while the optimism of youth is yet unscratched by
the cynicism of grey.
So that's it. If u reading till here and you have reached
here without a yawn drawing tears and making it blurry, I think I have possibly
conveyed what I needed to. Not wisdom but experience.
There... Pass it on, no backs. (Did you girls play this
game)?
Enjoy.
