WET HANDKERCHIEF Two weeks of training was over..Jaffer and Christy kept meeting whenever they got time..Since they belonged to different houses a daily meeting was difficult.From the beginning of the following week all the trainees were further divided into four sections according to their proficiency in swimming. .Excellent Good Average and Nought were the groups the trainees belonged..This grouping was tentative and the real grouping would be done only after putting each trainee to test..They will be put in the swimming pool and seen whether are on the surface or are they below which decided the fate of each..Whoever fell in in the first will enjoy every leisure time whereas the subsequent groups got moderate to nil leisure time..To add fuel to the fire the last two groups got more physical punishments in addition to the extra swimming classes..Swimming is given paramount importance as it entails to save yourself and rescue others too.. Jaffer and Christy fell in the average group while Vikrant escaped with a good rating.. Frequent extra classes got many friends for both..Nithin and Anwar were two of them..They all had a perfect bonding with each other as the saying goes frogs of the same pond jump together..Many frog jumps and rolls ensued when they found not improving... Three more weeks everyone showed considerable improvement..Some progressed from Nought to Average and at least two of the Average group slipped to Nought..Whenever the trainees felt confident then would inform their group instructor and within next two days a test will be conducted and whoever passed will be put in a separate list and they will be tried on a day when the training officer is available and the necessary regrouping is done..Instructors had power vrsted in them only for grouping Average and Nought.. Every trainee and every instructor in the pool was impressed with the progress of Brajesh Damodar... He was a dead weight and had sank to the bottom of pool in the first test..and he has now started paddling with both his hands and legs excessively and has learnt to stay afloat for a little while on the surface... While he was in the pool no trainees dared to go near him..His beating of water created tsunamis and whosoever swam close to him rested at the bottom with a minimum of 15 litres of chlorine dopped water inside the stomache.. Brajesh was watched by everyone..Christy and Jaffer waited for their tests which was after four weeks.. A week before the test the regular sessions were on. The nought trainees were being given mock test..in which every formalitg will be followed..Swimming for 25 metres diving from one metre height floating for two minutes..Brajesh was confident of himself..He did everything with others in his group except the one metre standing dive in which legs touch water first..Whenever he stood on the diving platform he felt the pool is so small that he would fall on the floor outside the pool..then the cool breeze passed over his wet body made him shiver..He came down on the floor then jumped..Instructors failed in covincing thaf the pool has sufficient dimensions that even he jumped unsteasily he wojld land in thd water only..theg demonstrated him..but in vain..He sat on the edge of pool and watched his group fellows doing things..Some of them after finishing the test went to the other side of the pool and started head diving from the floor to the pool..that was a good thing..thrte is no fear of falling out of the pool or of the breeze he thought..he dived head first and emerged from the blue water like a dolphin..he had observed swimmers in national and international games..he enjoyed...he did it twice...perfect..he asked his instructor whether this diving can take the place of one metre dive..instructor said no..He said Brajesh can practise more of one metre dives in the deep side of the pool...Instructed boosted him saying that he has mastered the floating technique and diving is also fine so there is not any chancd of him drowning in deep and had the brightest chance if reaching Excellent directly if he practised a little more on timing... Time was up for training fir the day..Everyone went to the open bathrooms..cleaned off the chlorine water freshened up and got mustered outside the swimming pool..Head count was taken and one was less..Everyone looked for their partners and found one is missing.. Arre who is that missing check again.. Arre you count yourself first.. Hahaha..good..I forgot that..but stil one is missing man.. It must be Brajesh..I had seen him talking to VK Singh...his instructor... But he is standing there next to that counter.. Sir Brajesh was there with you wheres he?? Yeah he was with me..see in the bathroom.. No sir hes nit here.. But after talking to me he had come out of pool..I know..But..OK lets check in the pool..Just for a formality..he has become expert...Check in the toilet also.. SSSSSIRRRRR..hes here.. WHERE?? Sssir hes in the pool sir. Oh no.e on boys lets go.. Oh my god..whats happened to him..but I had seen him getting out of pool after diving..Then how.. Brajesh was at the bottom of the pool with his chest touching..His body kept changing its shape with the still moving waves which reflected sunlight too.. VK Singh and other two instructors jumped to the shallow part of the pool where the water was just above thighs and turned his up and scooped him out of pool holding by his hip..his back rested on VK Singhs hands....his head and legs hung loose beyond and after the support of his body..Water was dripping from the legs and hairs like from a hankerchief taken out from a bucket of water....Silvery reflections on the walls of pool moved faster..the total deadly silence in the pool was broken only by the sound of ripples in the pool and the faster breathings of shocked trainees..and the clueless instructors....
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:36:19 +0000
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