I recently went to see the extraordinary and beautifully rendered movie, The Life of Pi. The film is adapted from the eponymous book written by Yann Martel. The protagonist in this story within a story is the curiously named, Piscine Molitor Patel or Pi. It turns out that Piscine is named in honour of a pool which was a social hub in 1930's Paris: A pool which Pi's uncle visited and fell in love with. The uncle's love of swimming got me thinking about all the places where I have swam and how these various pools which I have visited have had an impact on me.
My very first memory of swimming is from when I was about 8 years old. My father would take me and my youngest sister to the pool of a hotel in central Dar-es-Salaam. It was here that I first learned to swim and then progressed to diving off a board. (My father grew up in Yemen and has often recounted tales of swimming in the sea and being stung my jellyfish and other creatures). The hotel which we frequented was, I believe, The Agip. Often after our swim we would retreat to the shadiest part of the poolside restaurant and order what seemed like a luxurious lunch. Sometimes liver and onions and other times egg salad sandwiches.
A few years after my experience at the Agip Hotel's pool, my family and I arrived in Canada. I was ten years old at the time and we lived in a condominium which had the de rigeur swimming pool and sauna. My father and I would often go down to this pool and then end by warming up in the sauna. For many years after these initial swims, I frequented the pool: Sometimes in the summer with my friends and later, during a time of turmoil in my life, on my own, daily and obsessively. It was here that I began to use the pool to do lengths, oggle middle-aged women and watch the snow-flakes outside while I swam in the relative warmth of the pool. It was also here that I began to close my eyes and float on my back and, for a few moments, exist without effort. I also began to execute a move: the move that involves spinning in the water. The spin always gives me a sense of being a part of the water...it is a move of pure contentment, sensual, luxuriating.
Later, during my high school years, a few of my friends and I would gather our money and rent a cottage up north for a week. It was at the first of these cottages on Lake Redstone that another memorable moment in my swimming life appeared. At Lake Redstone, we fished and swam (someone must have cooked because no one died) and we fished off the boat provided by the owner.
One afternoon I went out in the row boat with a mask and snorkel. Memory being what it is, I remember it as being the quintessential summer afternoon in cottage country. I rowed the boat along the shore, left the oars in the water to slow the boat's drift and stuck my masked and snorkeled head over the back edge of the boat and watched. The image of sunlight streaming along the bottom of the shoreline is still clear in my mind. Huge tree trunks, massive boulders and tiny fish flitting about, while the sunlight painted various corners: now here, then there. It really was idyllic. And, being naturally sentimental, I still think about that cottage, on that lake and on that beautiful afternoon.
Next: Swimming at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai and sooo much, much more!!.
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