I have over a 1000 unread emails lying still since many months. Most of them are from various groups I've subscribed to on Design, World Affairs, Architecture and such. I don't feel like reading through all that information at all. I can't recollect when that started happening. Today, I miss doing the one thing I loved so ardently as a kid. I loved swimming. I would be stretched for hours in swimming pools. I don't remember when that passion dissolved too. Maybe it was after I left school. One of the fondest memories of my school picnics used to be swimming for hours when we visited Water Resorts. I clearly remember carrying two sets of spare clothes because I knew I could never get enough of water. I enjoyed the ache swimming caused in my arms and the sting on my skin post swim. It never deterred me from exploring speed and that cold rush I felt whenever I was in a pool.
I am reliving my swimming memories because suddenly I realised the unnatural fears I've been training my mind with lately, notably about water. I was never afraid of water, ever. I remember dreaming of being in woods surrounded with clear, blue waters all around me. It was a manifestation of some childhood fantasy that was augmented with the obsessive reading of Enid Blyton's The Famous Five. One of my guy friends from school was a regular swimmer and used to practice at a swimming pool adjoining a hotel far away from the town limits. Back then, I wanted so much to just be able to jump in a large recess of water and strike away whatever came in front of me. Now that hotel swimming pool is defunct and is closed. When I look back, I remember how much I pined for a swim there. It felt like that piece of candy a kid was denied although he never understood the reasons for the denial. It feels surreal to think all of this happened in my childhood. I sometimes go back to live a dream of doing all things I never did as a child including, swimming in a ocean. Oh, but we are such dreamers, aren't we?
Last Friday, I attended a lecture by Angela Davis speaking on Black Lives, Dalit Lives: Histories and Solidarities in Mumbai. She enthralled and revitalised a part in me that I realised had subsided to some quiet corner and came alive with her passionate, strong, calm demeanour. I became aware as I sat there listening to her from a long distance that perhaps the spirit that I keep looking for to guide me keeps on reappearing only when I am in duress. Her optimism about the times we are in made me think a little too better if not much. I met her and saw her up close taking in her light of compassion and felt something lighting up in me too.
There's way too much happening quickly without me realising it. I keep rethinking things on a loop inside my mind. It's quite distracting when I can't get a thought outside me. Writing helps, of course. I met one of my oldest school friends a while ago and we kept talking on the street for nearly 30 minutes before he spontaneously drew me into a hug and expressed his happiness on meeting me. I was for a quick second astounded at this display of warmth. We have ceased to express our emotions through touch. In fact, human proximity is much feared and seems like a scandalous thing to do in public. I mean, life is easy as it is complex but we must do our best to make it hard every living second just by contemplating about the outcomes. It creeps me to think how much over-analytical I've been about this subject. We are complicated beings not by our system but by our reactions. One moment I am reminiscing about my childhood memories and the other I am chastising myself over human contact. How ridiculous it must sound? But we have our doubts and fears and we get over them by learning to trust. So I am not sure where my monologue is leading to, but I hope I give myself a chance to embrace everything before being too judgemental. I still feel like that sweet child who looked up to the clear blue skies trying to gauge her future, a long time ago.
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