REVELRY BY THE POOLSIDE

A Swimming Gala and A Dancing Encounter

Punjab is awfully hot in summer. A poolside evening party therefore, sounded a splendid idea. The large swimming pool in Patiala where it was being held wore a festive air as officers and families of the entire armoured brigade congregated there. There were civilian gentry too, invitees of the brigade, which had organized it.

It began with a challenge thrown by the MC at all participants for a contest to earn free beers they could grab as many as they want, if only they could dive down to the bottom of the pool where the bottles were spread across. Youngsters like me, clad in our swimming trunks, promptly jackknifed in and began surfacing holding beer bottles aloft, much to the cheering of the crowd. Soon, it became apparent that it was my day to play the hero, as I earned up to three or more bottles, before some others hadn’t earned the first one. Nothing to write home for a guy like me of course, given the edge of hailing from the backwater country of Kuttanad in Kerala, where one learned to swim before beginning to walk. I couldn’t really remember an instance when I ever came less than first in any swimming contest. The real challenge for me that evening was yet to come.

It came after a while, when another competition was announced. This one was a team game, with two members in a team, one gent and one lady, one swimming and the other stationary. There was no gender discrimination in the role either played. The swimmer was to do one length of the pool, while the other, waiting at the opposite end would have to tie a thread provided to each team on his or her middle finger. He or she then had to swim back the whole length. Whichever team’s swimmer made it back first with the thread tied to the middle finger won the game. Now then, don’t get the notion that there were so many lady swimmers as gent ones. It was still 1960s and only few ladies entered the pool, those too older ones in swimsuits, not any young ones in bikinis. The ladies were mostly seated around the pool and watching the show. Therefore, gents it was, mostly youngsters, who volunteered to participate in this team event. Indeed, they had to find their lady teammates.

I chose the easiest path. Wrapped in my dressing gown, I walked over to the corner where the ladies from our regiment were seated and requested one of them, wife of a senior officer, whom I knew very well, to oblige me by being my teammate. She scoffed at me, as did the rest of the ladies, all of them in a jovial, celebratory mood. “What! Ramu, there are so many young girls around. Can’t you get one of them to join you, instead of old hags like us?” Now, I must admit that I was (and still am) somewhat of a timid character when it came to women and didn’t dare asking a girl whom I had never met earlier to join me and tie a thread on my finger. But our regimental ladies would have none of it. They began to egg me on. “Come on Ramu, be a man. Go on and ask one of the girls.” They even began pointing out different girls who would fit the bill. I knew they were teasing me, but I had to find courage and do something about it. Most of the ladies were singling out a stunningly beautiful girl sitting beside an elderly Sikh gentleman of massive proportions, obviously her father or uncle. The ladies continued to egg me on “Come on Ramu, step over to her and ask.” Another lady quipped “No, no, he is scared of the Sardar, aren’t you Ramu?” Yet another added “Come on, don’t be a coward! Show some guts!” This was too bloody much. I sauntered over to where the girl was seated gritting my teeth.

Summoning my courage and reminding myself of the gentlemanly etiquette to be followed while requesting a young lady for a dance, I approached the Sardar escort of the girl and asked, bending politely, “Excuse me Sir, may I request the young lady here to join me as my teammate for a game?” The gentleman, obviously paying scant attention to the rantings of the MC, looked at me rather bewildered. “What game? What teammate?” I explained what the game was about, noticing with relief a faint smile that crossed the girl’s face from the corner of my eye. At least she knew about the game. “Ah! Okay”, the Sardar said half sure, then turned to the girl and asked “You want to go?” The girl gave a barely perceptible nod of consent and I was on cloud nine. Following my gesture, she stood up to walk over to the poolside with me. “Win the game, I don’t want my girl to lose.” The Sardar said with a patronizing smile. “She won’t, Sir.” I said with pretended confidence as we moved on to join the contest.

Her name was Neena, I learned. After positioning Neena at the far end of the pool with the thread, I moved to the starting end where swimmers were lining up. At that point, it was like any other swimming contest except that there were no lanes marked, and I made it a point to position myself roughly opposite Neena, easily recognizable in the deep blue outfit she wore. I shot off with ease at the gun. A freestyle race is always fun and I had taken a lead over others by the time I hit the far end and threw my hands up to Neena. She swiftly tied the thread on my middle finger with a steadiness of hand that surprised me and I shot off back in a jiffy, further increasing my lead over others. There was a huge round of applause as I finished first and, wrapping my dressing gown around my torso, I rushed to thank Neena who had gone back to her seat near her father. I specially complimented her for the swift manner in which she tied the thread with absolutely no fumbling. “She’d better be,” her father commented. “She’s going to be a surgeon”. It turned out that she was a medical student attending college in Delhi and was home on vacation.

Back with the regimental group for pats on the back, more for finding a ‘chick’ for the teammate than winning the contest, I was soon facing yet another challenge of the same genre. The MC called for both members of the top three teams to come over to the makeshift dancing floor towards one corner of the pool to receive the awards. As I hesitantly turned to go and fetch Neena to the prompting of my boisterous buddies, they threw yet another challenge that I dance with her. “Don’t be a smuck, Ramu. Get her to dance with you.” A rustic fellow who barely knew a few steps in dancing and had rarely been on floor bar occasionally with a regimental lady or two in a formal way, I wasn’t going to fall for the buffoonery of asking a girl I had just met for a dance. I was no romantic Bollywood idol.

As it happened, after Neena and I were given our awards, a gift-wrapped box for her and a bottle of whiskey for me, the MC unilaterally called out for me to take my ‘partner’ to the floor. It was a nightmare, because I had told the girl that we were going over to the dancing floor to receive the awards only. “You don’t have to.” I told Neena apologetically, but she seemed to sense my embarrassment and said, “It’s okay.” Whatever it meant, with the MC cheering on, I took her hand and slipped an arm around her waist in the standard dancing norm. She put her free hand on my shoulder and we swung around to the music a couple of times, before quietly slipping out of the floor together, task accomplished! I escorted Neena back to her seat, thanked her and her father and bolted back to my group, to be roundly rebuked not to have danced longer. “You don’t get a dame like that to dance with every day, you goof! You should have made the best of it.”

I strolled over to the bar and downed a full mug of beer to cool myself off the terror of the encounter!

Post Script: I continued to swim, but never could make myself at home on a dancing floor.