Sunday, April 29, 2007
Eye Candy
She stared lasciviously at the sexy man talking to her husband. Sharp features, slight stubble, short hair, ready laugh, confidence oozing from every pore. She drank him in with her orange juice. Dreaming about him would be easy. That face and the well-toned body were easy to memorise, to imprint on her mind, on her body. She felt hot, trapped in her clothing. The air-conditioning was no use as the heat and the view warmed her senses. He smiled, reaching out a sinewy forearm for his coffee. He leaned back in his chair, sipping his coffee and smiling indulgently at her husband. Sighing, resigned, she watched the man she was married to—a study in contrast—talking and eating noisily, ketchup adorning the extremities of his mouth. If he knew she was staring, leching, at another man there would be hell to pay. Defiant, unafraid, she stared on. Her burkha had its uses…
Saturday, April 28, 2007
The Peddler of Wares
Naked, I cannot cringe under the glare of the powerful lights trained on me. The men who will dress me up for my next look crowd around me, busy with the materials of their trade. The busy highway whizzes past me, cars light me up with their curious headlights as they go home without so much as a second glance. I bear it all. Unmoved, immovable, immobile, wooden.
For I am used to this. To this blatant peddling of wares. To selling what I wear the best way I know. By wearing it and daring others to dream. Men will look at me and go on home to their lamp-lit, cosy homes and snuggle close to their wives for warmth as I stand in the rain. Women will glance at me from the comfort of the air-conditioned cars they drive as I continue to exist in the harsh sun. Children will gaze at me vacantly as they go by, their eyes sweeping from one sight to the next without anything to hold their attention on this busy link road between cities.
And I, dwarfed by the under-construction skyscrapers all around me, in this city that is hurrying to be something new, something else, something modern, will be left behind, standing there, stripped for the world to see---if it has the time---what I really am: just a frame on which new posters will be stretched and fitted every few weeks, selling houses, cars, food. And no one will see me underneath it all as I watch the world pass me by.
For I am used to this. To this blatant peddling of wares. To selling what I wear the best way I know. By wearing it and daring others to dream. Men will look at me and go on home to their lamp-lit, cosy homes and snuggle close to their wives for warmth as I stand in the rain. Women will glance at me from the comfort of the air-conditioned cars they drive as I continue to exist in the harsh sun. Children will gaze at me vacantly as they go by, their eyes sweeping from one sight to the next without anything to hold their attention on this busy link road between cities.
And I, dwarfed by the under-construction skyscrapers all around me, in this city that is hurrying to be something new, something else, something modern, will be left behind, standing there, stripped for the world to see---if it has the time---what I really am: just a frame on which new posters will be stretched and fitted every few weeks, selling houses, cars, food. And no one will see me underneath it all as I watch the world pass me by.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
For Commercial Use
I recently visited the toilet while at a huge mall in Dubai, spotless clean with two women mopping the shining floors furiously. As I shut the door behind me and started to hang my bag up, I noticed a poster covering half the door, just below the bag hook. It was an ad for Lifebuoy handwash that said "Look closely: There are 189 kinds of invisible germs in this toilet." Eeks! The shiny cubicle took on a menacing look and I hurried through my business and raced out to wash my hands. I don't think it was Lifebuoy in those soap dispensers though! Talk about foolish, mindless placement of ads. Yes, Lifebuoy was paying them pots of dirhams, but did they really want to put that ad in their painstakingly clean loo?
On Indian TV, I enjoy watching advertisements almost as much and sometimes more than the TV programmes they sponsor. I find them to be much more in tune with local realities than soap operas that show over-lipsticked, over-sindoored, "pativrata" women plotting nasty schemes in their chiffon finery.
I see ads as yet another form of entertainment. Rarely has an ad moved me to go for the particular product (unless it involves images of chocolate). Instead, they can amuse and surprise. I've seen some fabulous ads that left me smiling for the rest of the day. And I'm sharing some ads that I tracked down online so that you can enjoy them too.
One series of ads we have all grown up with in India are the utterly butterly ads for Amul. I remember picking which 500g pack to buy depending on the cartoon I liked best.
Topical, amusing, and often using clever puns to comment on what was going on, they were eagerly looked forward to. See the one below, during the Emergency when Sanjay Gandhi went on a compulsory sterilisation drive.
Or this one, when INSAT 1 had problems with its flaps on launching.
I was dazzled (pun intended) by the Happydent ad. On the same note, the Orbit White ad, with the famous cow and Dr Bhatwadekar is perfect! See the storyboard here, the English version here and the Hindi version (sadly, not half as amusing) here.
The Madhya Pradesh tourism ad, Hindustan ka dil dekho is another one that has me tapping my feet and mouthing the words. (Special mention of the visual "aankhen phaar phaar dekho"!)
And then what about that Mentos dimaag ki batti jala de ad: See the storyboard (can't link the video for some reason). Obviously whoever thought these up had a 100 watt bulb in their brain!
Of course, some ads can (and maybe should) shock the viewer into behaviour change. For instance the famous one on passive smoke, which coolly spoofed Marlboro. I thought this was very very clever.
And, to end on a high note, check these out. They were forwarded to me lately, and I laughed my head off at the first two. The others are funny too...worth a look!
PS: Please let me have your links to good ads and I I'll put them up as a follow-up to this post!
On Indian TV, I enjoy watching advertisements almost as much and sometimes more than the TV programmes they sponsor. I find them to be much more in tune with local realities than soap operas that show over-lipsticked, over-sindoored, "pativrata" women plotting nasty schemes in their chiffon finery.
I see ads as yet another form of entertainment. Rarely has an ad moved me to go for the particular product (unless it involves images of chocolate). Instead, they can amuse and surprise. I've seen some fabulous ads that left me smiling for the rest of the day. And I'm sharing some ads that I tracked down online so that you can enjoy them too.
One series of ads we have all grown up with in India are the utterly butterly ads for Amul. I remember picking which 500g pack to buy depending on the cartoon I liked best.
Topical, amusing, and often using clever puns to comment on what was going on, they were eagerly looked forward to. See the one below, during the Emergency when Sanjay Gandhi went on a compulsory sterilisation drive.
Or this one, when INSAT 1 had problems with its flaps on launching.
I was dazzled (pun intended) by the Happydent ad. On the same note, the Orbit White ad, with the famous cow and Dr Bhatwadekar is perfect! See the storyboard here, the English version here and the Hindi version (sadly, not half as amusing) here.
Check out these stickers Wrigleys placed under Starbucks cups. I am not sure though what they want to say!
Or the ones put up by a Paris stripclub all across the city.
Or even this one seen in Germany during the Football World Cup: an ad for Adidas. The caption where I got this image from said "If you're currently in Germany, you may be driving under the world's biggest set of balls."
We've all had flyers for home delivery from various restaurants tucked into our door handles or mailboxes. But this pizza company went one step ahead.
For more images like the 4 above, go here.
The Madhya Pradesh tourism ad, Hindustan ka dil dekho is another one that has me tapping my feet and mouthing the words. (Special mention of the visual "aankhen phaar phaar dekho"!)
And then what about that Mentos dimaag ki batti jala de ad: See the storyboard (can't link the video for some reason). Obviously whoever thought these up had a 100 watt bulb in their brain!
Of course, some ads can (and maybe should) shock the viewer into behaviour change. For instance the famous one on passive smoke, which coolly spoofed Marlboro. I thought this was very very clever.
And, to end on a high note, check these out. They were forwarded to me lately, and I laughed my head off at the first two. The others are funny too...worth a look!
PS: Please let me have your links to good ads and I I'll put them up as a follow-up to this post!
My First 55
He handed her the vial. The translucent, prismatic poison glinted against the light. “Works in 15 minutes”, he assured, and went to wash up before lunch. This man she’d silently loved all her life. She watched him stride back, handsome, unattainable, cruel to a loving heart. His drink sat there, waiting for his unsuspecting lips.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Transported
He was on his way back from work, having left the snazzy, new-age, all-glass office in the heart of the city's financial centre. Sitting next to the driver in the battered, used, overused, abused taxi, the young consultant let his gaze wander to the horizon, trying to overlook the rows and rows of cars clogging the well-maintained road that sped through the Middle-Eastern city, lined with pink and white creeper flowers all along the way. A distance of 3 kilometres and it could take him another half an hour or even an hour to cover it.
Curious eyes watched him from the back seat. At least 4 pairs. He hadn't looked back long enough to check. There were women in burkhas, an old man, and a little child, who lisped and asked for water every few minutes. There was none in the car, and the consultant, used to solving people's problems, wondered what could be done about it in the middle of a traffic jam. The father of the child, sitting at the wheel, growled in Malayalam to the boy to sit quiet, or the police would take him away. At least, catching the word 'police' in the torrent of Malayalam that left the driver's lips, that's what the consultant figured. The child shrank back till thirst conquered fear for another attempt.
For no fault of anyone's, the overfull car with old upholstery and insufficient airconditioning smelt to high heaven. The driver had turned the AC on as a kind gesture. If only he hadn't...rolling down the windows would be infinitely better, thought the consultant, as he held his phone to his nostrils in a futile attempt to subtly block the fragrances of all the passengers in that long, sweaty, desert day who had ridden that car.
The taxi driver who picked him up each evening at a fixed time for a fixed rate had brought his whole family that day. Were they planning a picnic after dropping him off? Or had they come along for a ride, for lack of anything better to do? They seemed absorbed in watching him. The young passenger wondered what he would do if his boss pulled up next to this tiny Nissan in his silver Jag right at that moment. Slink down in his seat? Or roll down the window with bravado and cheerfully introduce his adoptive family to the Brit?
This was still better than the morning, when the young 'Paakstani' driving him to work had started showing off his new handmade shoes from his 'vatan' just as they pulled up at the porch. The consultant had jumped hastily out of the car, paying exact change to avoid waiting, before others coming in to work saw him being threatened with a pair of rough leather handmade shoes brandished in his face.
Of course, any of this was better than the agency telling you, in this city of too-much-traffic-too-few-taxis-too-many-people, that inshallah the cab would be there on time, if at all. Or the cab driver calling to say he was 'here boss', at 4.30 am instead of 7, as he sat bolt upright in a too-springy hotel bed, hair on end, wondering why it was dark out at 7.
As he sat and thought about all this, he was disturbed by a crackling sound of static as the driver, bored in the car, started fidgeting with the radio controls. No please please please, he thought, cringing mentally at the thought of Malayalam music flooding this overcrowded tin box.
Suddenly, 'jhalak dikhlaa ja...ek bar aja aja aja aja aaaaja' pounced out of the radio and attacked the smelly space. The back seat yielded first, focusing on the music rather than this fellow Indian who'd sat uncomfortably in the front seat as his collar bristled under the scrutiny. The driver tapped the steering wheel in time to the music. And the young consultant found his feet tapping too. All of them could close their eyes and imagine they were transported to a street in Bombay, in Kolkata, in Cochin, in Kozhikode....The whole car grew happier, and the traffic started creeping forward as a distant light turned green.
Curious eyes watched him from the back seat. At least 4 pairs. He hadn't looked back long enough to check. There were women in burkhas, an old man, and a little child, who lisped and asked for water every few minutes. There was none in the car, and the consultant, used to solving people's problems, wondered what could be done about it in the middle of a traffic jam. The father of the child, sitting at the wheel, growled in Malayalam to the boy to sit quiet, or the police would take him away. At least, catching the word 'police' in the torrent of Malayalam that left the driver's lips, that's what the consultant figured. The child shrank back till thirst conquered fear for another attempt.
For no fault of anyone's, the overfull car with old upholstery and insufficient airconditioning smelt to high heaven. The driver had turned the AC on as a kind gesture. If only he hadn't...rolling down the windows would be infinitely better, thought the consultant, as he held his phone to his nostrils in a futile attempt to subtly block the fragrances of all the passengers in that long, sweaty, desert day who had ridden that car.
The taxi driver who picked him up each evening at a fixed time for a fixed rate had brought his whole family that day. Were they planning a picnic after dropping him off? Or had they come along for a ride, for lack of anything better to do? They seemed absorbed in watching him. The young passenger wondered what he would do if his boss pulled up next to this tiny Nissan in his silver Jag right at that moment. Slink down in his seat? Or roll down the window with bravado and cheerfully introduce his adoptive family to the Brit?
This was still better than the morning, when the young 'Paakstani' driving him to work had started showing off his new handmade shoes from his 'vatan' just as they pulled up at the porch. The consultant had jumped hastily out of the car, paying exact change to avoid waiting, before others coming in to work saw him being threatened with a pair of rough leather handmade shoes brandished in his face.
Of course, any of this was better than the agency telling you, in this city of too-much-traffic-too-few-taxis-too-many-people, that inshallah the cab would be there on time, if at all. Or the cab driver calling to say he was 'here boss', at 4.30 am instead of 7, as he sat bolt upright in a too-springy hotel bed, hair on end, wondering why it was dark out at 7.
As he sat and thought about all this, he was disturbed by a crackling sound of static as the driver, bored in the car, started fidgeting with the radio controls. No please please please, he thought, cringing mentally at the thought of Malayalam music flooding this overcrowded tin box.
Suddenly, 'jhalak dikhlaa ja...ek bar aja aja aja aja aaaaja' pounced out of the radio and attacked the smelly space. The back seat yielded first, focusing on the music rather than this fellow Indian who'd sat uncomfortably in the front seat as his collar bristled under the scrutiny. The driver tapped the steering wheel in time to the music. And the young consultant found his feet tapping too. All of them could close their eyes and imagine they were transported to a street in Bombay, in Kolkata, in Cochin, in Kozhikode....The whole car grew happier, and the traffic started creeping forward as a distant light turned green.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Smells like Home
The sound of a pressure cooker whistling and sputtering out is one of the most reassuring, familiar, homey sounds in the world to me. It reminds me of Sunday afternoons lazing at home, in the warmth of family all around. It reminds me of hyperactive evenings with a houseful of friends and relatives as my mother went into overdrive in the kitchen, feeding them all, tired but proud not to have failed everyone's expectation of her as a good cook! It reminds me of walking back from the bus stop on hot summer afternoons, sticky school uniform, a test coming up the next day, and then, as I walked down the corridor towards our flat, the sound of a pressure cooker...Ma's at home, she's cooking.....mutton!!!
I have always prefered to eat than to cook. Ma would occasionally start telling me the process of cooking something when I wandered unsuspectingly into the kitchen to steal a bite of what was cooking. Next thing I knew, I'd be standing there shelling peas as I let her recipe float over my head, paying minimum attention, just enough to make all the right sounds!
But now, with a kitchen to myself, (it's a hot plate, and it's on the left in a small passage on the way to the rest of the room we call home while we live it up (?) in Dubai), I seem to have discovered the joys of cooking! It's a delight to go shopping. It's an even greater delight when I come across a recipe on Sandeepa's page that seems to need all those ingredients I don't know what to do with. And when, in an impulse attempt to cook Chicken 65, I race out to buy karhi patta (curry leaves), I hurry over hot roads in the desert sun, past sights and sounds and foreign cars that remind me that I am far from home, and go looking for those familiar leaves among overstocked shelves with a sense of anticipation and impatience. I glimpse a tightly shrinkwrapped bunch, and raise them to my nose to check and, I am home in that moment, in that smell.
Trying to be content with brief phone conversations with family, when I splutter jeera in the pan prior to cooking aloo gobhi, I close my eyes and breathe in that aroma that always meant that dinner was ready and that daal, with fresh tadka and dhania leaves, was going to be on the table, golden and tempting.
Smells are so much more evocative of memories than anything else. Just like books, they can help you travel, and take you places you loved and treasured, settling you firmly among all that was special, all that was home.
I have always prefered to eat than to cook. Ma would occasionally start telling me the process of cooking something when I wandered unsuspectingly into the kitchen to steal a bite of what was cooking. Next thing I knew, I'd be standing there shelling peas as I let her recipe float over my head, paying minimum attention, just enough to make all the right sounds!
But now, with a kitchen to myself, (it's a hot plate, and it's on the left in a small passage on the way to the rest of the room we call home while we live it up (?) in Dubai), I seem to have discovered the joys of cooking! It's a delight to go shopping. It's an even greater delight when I come across a recipe on Sandeepa's page that seems to need all those ingredients I don't know what to do with. And when, in an impulse attempt to cook Chicken 65, I race out to buy karhi patta (curry leaves), I hurry over hot roads in the desert sun, past sights and sounds and foreign cars that remind me that I am far from home, and go looking for those familiar leaves among overstocked shelves with a sense of anticipation and impatience. I glimpse a tightly shrinkwrapped bunch, and raise them to my nose to check and, I am home in that moment, in that smell.
Trying to be content with brief phone conversations with family, when I splutter jeera in the pan prior to cooking aloo gobhi, I close my eyes and breathe in that aroma that always meant that dinner was ready and that daal, with fresh tadka and dhania leaves, was going to be on the table, golden and tempting.
Smells are so much more evocative of memories than anything else. Just like books, they can help you travel, and take you places you loved and treasured, settling you firmly among all that was special, all that was home.
Dreams in their Eyes
What motivates people through life? I'm in Dubai nowadays and I see lots of Asians all around me, working quietly backstage to keep the Emirate running smoothly. Sweepers, waiters, porters, construction workers, hotel housekeeping staff, chefs, taxi drivers, airport bathroom cleaners, they're all Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Afghans (Okay, lots of Filipinos too). They struggle everyday, living in terrible conditions, sharing bathrooms and bedspace with 8-10 other equally desperate people, eating simple food day in day out, and all this without the comfort of home around them. All this, knowing that the country they are in is just exploiting their terrible need for money. Money to send back home, money to fund marriages for an endless line of dependents, money to educate the children so they go further and higher than their fathers, money so that people back home can live a life that is denied to them otherwise.
I met an Afghan who has been here for 25 years and has slept in a tour company's desert camp every night for the last 10 years, so that he can finance his family's survival back in a war-ravaged homeland. A taxi driver who has been here for 30 years and is now being forced to quit his job, probably in the government's bid to give jobs to locals (this country will fall apart!). A Mallu cab-driver who spews angst in everything he says about his employers. A Pakistani (who pretended to be from Bombay, should I have believed him?) who has slept on the floor of a 10 square-foot room with 8 others for the last 11 years and sees no improvement in sight. A Goan who cleans my hotel room and dreams of returning to India and working in a call center.
Dreams...these are what have kept all these people going. There are those who dream big, and those who dream small. A dream is the eternal carrot, making us all run, lame though we may be, though we know we can never run back to where we started from, though we know that the carrot may elude us always, we still run.
On KBC, it is interesting to watch people following their dreams to the hot seat. There they sit, in front of a quiz master who has everything he wants, and in the nervous excitement of the game they are about to begin, where they could win it all, they confess their dreams to him. Someone wants to fund surgery for an ailing mother, someone wants to buy a house, someone wants to start a charity organisation, someone wants to vacation on an island with JLo. They spill their desires and dreams to the whole world, with stars in their eyes, and keep quizzing.
Dreams are crushed everyday. The construction worker trapped in an unsafe building will never send money home again. The soldier killed in action will never march home again. The teenager who jumped off a building with a broken heart will never smile again.
And then, someone wins the lottery, or you read someone's rags-to-riches story, and you start to dream, again. And when you look at the world with stars in your eyes, everything looks beautiful, and much can be achieved.
I met an Afghan who has been here for 25 years and has slept in a tour company's desert camp every night for the last 10 years, so that he can finance his family's survival back in a war-ravaged homeland. A taxi driver who has been here for 30 years and is now being forced to quit his job, probably in the government's bid to give jobs to locals (this country will fall apart!). A Mallu cab-driver who spews angst in everything he says about his employers. A Pakistani (who pretended to be from Bombay, should I have believed him?) who has slept on the floor of a 10 square-foot room with 8 others for the last 11 years and sees no improvement in sight. A Goan who cleans my hotel room and dreams of returning to India and working in a call center.
Dreams...these are what have kept all these people going. There are those who dream big, and those who dream small. A dream is the eternal carrot, making us all run, lame though we may be, though we know we can never run back to where we started from, though we know that the carrot may elude us always, we still run.
On KBC, it is interesting to watch people following their dreams to the hot seat. There they sit, in front of a quiz master who has everything he wants, and in the nervous excitement of the game they are about to begin, where they could win it all, they confess their dreams to him. Someone wants to fund surgery for an ailing mother, someone wants to buy a house, someone wants to start a charity organisation, someone wants to vacation on an island with JLo. They spill their desires and dreams to the whole world, with stars in their eyes, and keep quizzing.
Dreams are crushed everyday. The construction worker trapped in an unsafe building will never send money home again. The soldier killed in action will never march home again. The teenager who jumped off a building with a broken heart will never smile again.
And then, someone wins the lottery, or you read someone's rags-to-riches story, and you start to dream, again. And when you look at the world with stars in your eyes, everything looks beautiful, and much can be achieved.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Feather-weight
I was just trawling through the dictionary (don't ask why, I have this weird curiosity about words and where they come from and how some words are connected with others) and I happened to find the definition of feather.
Now, feathers are soft, gentle, light, tickling devices. They give birds wings. They are the basic units that allow flight. They used to decorate pens in Shakespeare's time. They can be seen on exotic, colorful costumes. Don't they have this soft association to them?
But here's how the dictionary defined it! And it is so unromantic I just thought I'd share it as trivia:
Pronunciation: 'fe-[th]&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English fether, from Old English; akin to Old High German federa wing, Latin petere to go to, seek, Greek petesthai to fly, piptein to fall, pteron wing
1 a : any of the light horny epidermal outgrowths that form the external covering of the body of birds and that consist of a shaft bearing on each side a series of barbs which bear barbules which in turn bear barbicels commonly ending in hooked hamuli and interlocking with the barbules of an adjacent barb to link the barbs into a continuous vane.
sigh....
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Coffee Kicks
I think the smell of coffee is one of the bestest things in the world! Give me coffee over tea any time. Primarily because just that smell starts to work its magic on you while the cup is still making its way towards your eagerly waiting mouth. If tea has such a powerful olfactory impact, I am not aware of it and I don't really care. Because the coffee scent just makes me go mmmmmmm! :)
A sudden sleep attack made me slump over the keyboard as I worked. Miraculously, a cup of steaming coffee swam into my blurry vision. Goodbye inertia! I was up in a jiffy, made myself that cup of coffee and as I swallowed the dregs with a mix of pleasure and regret, I realised I was wide awake again. (This does not work on me at night if I want to stay up for a deadline!)
I am not a coffee addict. In fact, I can go days without drinking coffee. It's usually a social pleasure to snuggle up on a Starbucks/Barista/CCD sofa with a cup of coffee. Or to down a cold cold cold coffee on a hot hot hot Delhi/Bombay day. But coffee can really make me happy! And it can wake me up.
So here's to coffee, and coffee shops, and friends to drink it with...
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
It's Swim-ple
A bright beautiful sunny day in Bangkok, Thailand.
The momentous date: some time in July 1995.
The venue: pool and poolside of a neighbourhood swimming school.
Rows of excited parents chattering in Thai wait for their 3 and 4 year olds to embark on their first swimming lesson. From the changing room, the pitter patter of tiny feet is heard as 15-20 little angels in oh-so-cute swimsuits dash out and run circles around the pool to warm-up before they enter the water. Cameras and handycams are activated by said proud parents.
But what is this blocking their view as it goes thundering past, beating a thunderous tattoo on the concrete? Is it T-Rex? Is it the Concorde? (It is jumbo though.) Oh, is it the swim instructor? No...it is the oldest kid ever to join this class.
Meet yours truly on that date: 5 foot 6, about 50 kilos (that sounds like music now), 16 years old, in a swimsuit for the first time and terribly self-conscious. A good time to seek the sanctuary of a hiding-place. This is not when you do jumping jacks by the pool in the company of Lilliputians.
As I slide into the pool to find that watery hide-out, fervently praying for invisibility or at least chameleonic powers, my last refuge is denied to me. The water in the pool is a mere 4 foot 8. leaving a LOT of me sticking out. This is going to take forever (forever equals 3 months).
Needless to say, I am a bad swimmer. I re-entered a pool yesterday after almost 9 years. And all my old weaknesses re-emerged. I think I shall hold on to the sides and blow bubbles under water.
The momentous date: some time in July 1995.
The venue: pool and poolside of a neighbourhood swimming school.
Rows of excited parents chattering in Thai wait for their 3 and 4 year olds to embark on their first swimming lesson. From the changing room, the pitter patter of tiny feet is heard as 15-20 little angels in oh-so-cute swimsuits dash out and run circles around the pool to warm-up before they enter the water. Cameras and handycams are activated by said proud parents.
But what is this blocking their view as it goes thundering past, beating a thunderous tattoo on the concrete? Is it T-Rex? Is it the Concorde? (It is jumbo though.) Oh, is it the swim instructor? No...it is the oldest kid ever to join this class.
Meet yours truly on that date: 5 foot 6, about 50 kilos (that sounds like music now), 16 years old, in a swimsuit for the first time and terribly self-conscious. A good time to seek the sanctuary of a hiding-place. This is not when you do jumping jacks by the pool in the company of Lilliputians.
As I slide into the pool to find that watery hide-out, fervently praying for invisibility or at least chameleonic powers, my last refuge is denied to me. The water in the pool is a mere 4 foot 8. leaving a LOT of me sticking out. This is going to take forever (forever equals 3 months).
Needless to say, I am a bad swimmer. I re-entered a pool yesterday after almost 9 years. And all my old weaknesses re-emerged. I think I shall hold on to the sides and blow bubbles under water.
