THE SWIMMING CAMP

I learnt swimming when I was 14 years old. I took up the swimming coaching camp held at the Taj Manjarun in Mangalore. It is a 4 star hotel. It was for a duration of one month. I went there with my brother and four of my friends. We had the best coaches teach us swimming. The routine was to play cricket in the morning and then travel 20 km by bus to this most exotic hotel in Mangalore to learn swimming and then eat pastry over at the restaurant inside and go home. Wow...it was fun and I loved it. We made a lot of friends.

After a month my friends went their way. But my brother and I stayed back one more month to learn more. We learnt all the four strokes in swimming. In the next month we were alloted the morning batch between 7 AM to 8 AM. However we used to reach there early. We knew the people there and they did not mind what we did. Even though we were supposed to get inside the pool at 7, I used to get inside at 6 which was supposed to be the ladies batch. My brother sat beside the pool because the water was too cold for him.

The ladies were learning swimming for the first time and it was fun with them. It was nice knowing them too. I knew a lot more than the ladies about swimming. I used to get along with the coach and teach them a thing or two. They became friends with me. They had revealing clothes too and that was the first time I "saw" a woman. There were women of age 40 to girls about the age of 16. After the school reopened, I remember telling my friends about it and they used to go 'hey you are lucky man', 'with I was there too'. Man!!! I hope those days come back.