My eyes surveyed the one-piece bathing suit my mother stitched using her Usha sewing machine. “I love it. Thank you!” I jumped up and down, my smile stretching like a rubber band. I was around ten or eleven years of age.
That summer, my parents had signed up my sister and me to learn swimming at a nearby pool that offered swim lessons for girls at reasonable prices. Swimming wasn’t a popular pastime for most Indians those days. Swim lessons were expensive and most middle-class families like ours could not afford them. My parents had to dip into their savings to pay for our lessons at the Hyderabad Club. But what about our swimsuits?
Our ingenious mom decided to sew them. She searched her almirah that was packed with sarees, blouses, petticoats, night gowns, unstitched material, laces, and ribbons, and found enough fabric to make two bathing suits. She asked us to choose between two pieces of cloth. I picked the blue while Joy went with the red. Over the next few days, Mom worked hard at the mechanical sewing machine, her head hunched over the solid equipment, her hands alternating between turning the fly wheel and moving the fabric along to be punctured by the needle, and her feet firmly placed on the pedal, pointing and flexing. The process made a rhythmic, rickety-rackety noise that infiltrated every corner of our one-bedroom home. Scents of new fabric, sweat, and greasing oil combined to give the stitching nook a unique odor that is still etched in my mind.
My sister, Joy, and I showed up at the pool that summer, ecstatic and eager. Sure, our bathing suits were homemade and not bought from a retail store, but we did not care about such superficial details. We had what we needed—functional and comfortable bathing suits and a dogged determination to have fun—and that was enough. Thrilled that we could spend an hour a day in a pool of water, Joy and I paid little attention to what others thought of our attires. We wanted to, like many other boys and girls, find entertainment in cooling ourselves with water in hot weather.
Water is a necessity, an essential commodity. In many parts of India, however, water is a luxury since it’s scarce. Scarcer in summer. Our home did not get running water twenty-four hours a day. Water poured from our taps only for an hour or two every other day during which we rushed to collect and store it in huge plastic drums and several buckets. Two-thirds of our bathroom was occupied by water storage containers, leaving an area just spacious enough for a person to stand and a bucket of water to sit. We used a plastic mug with a handle to draw water from the bucket and wash ourselves.
When the summer heat became unbearable, I would plead with my parents’ permission to let me use two buckets of water —one to have a bath and the other for splashing around. One of my best childhood memories was when our parents would convert our bathroom into a mini splash pool, not simply to keep us entertained but mostly out of necessity. Sometimes, we had to empty a half-filled drum just so it could be refilled to its fullest capacity the next day, our “water” day. My parents moved the buckets out, cleaned the bathroom, blocked our drain, and emptied the half-filled drum. Joy and I splashed around in our bathroom pool until our fingers wrinkled, dreaming of a day when we could kick our feet in a real swimming pool.
That day had arrived. Our fantasy had turned to reality.
The swim instructor assigned to us on our first day at the pool rarely smiled. She announced instructions in a loud voice and somehow managed to keep the group of around ten girls focused. I do not recollect what methods she used to teach swimming. But I remember following her instructions with the determination of a young bird keen to learn how to fly.
Within two weeks, my sibling and I graduated from the shallow end of the pool to the deep end. The instructor taught us the basics but did not have the time or patience to focus on proper technique or breathing. We were declared swimmers when we knew how to get from one end of the pool to the other without drowning.
Only a year younger than me, Joy, was the perfect companion for water fun. We squeezed enjoyment from every minute spent at the pool. We raced each other. We invented new strokes of swimming. We played water games. We tried turns and dives. When the bell rang at the end of the hour, we tried to disappear underwater so nobody could find us and command us to leave. But our instructor was on to us. She alternated between blowing the whistle and yelling at us to get out of the pool. Many times, she swore she would not allow us into the pool the next day if we didn’t immediately comply. My sister and I slowly dragged ourselves out of the water, pretending to feel guilty but secretly overjoyed.
After our water adventures, Joy and I would find our father waiting outside, seated on his Bajaj Chetak scooter, a common mode of transport for most Indians at that time. Joy straddled the two-wheeler first behind my dad and then I hopped on it. Giddy with tiredness and excitement, we chatted all the way home.
The aroma of hot oil, fried bread, and mangoes greeted us at the door. Mom usually made pooris (deep-fried bread) and aam ras (mango milk shake) to satisfy our after-swim appetites. The aam ras was served in stainless steel bowls so that we could dip our pooris in the sweet beverage and lick the bowls clean after eating our fill of pooris.
We went to bed smelling of chlorine and mangoes.
Memories of that Indian summer more than three decades ago flit across my mind as I holler at my eleven-year-old son to pack his bag for his swim lessons He grabs his favorite swim shorts that I purchased from Target and throws his towel and swim goggles into his bag. We drive to an indoor heated pool for kids, one of several in sunny Silicon Valley, in our hybrid Prius. Ryan and I rush in, making our way through the crowd of parents and children. The air is thick with heat and humidity.
Students can wash themselves before or after a swim using any of the showers situated near the lockers. Water never runs out.
Ryan is greeted by coach, a teen who’s all smiles and good manners. My son dives into the pool, his 40-minute lesson begins. And I watch with a mixture of pride and nostalgia as he executes an effortless backstroke with a deft turn between each lap.