Swimming, Fun and Frolic at Nehru Park

 

 

 

The boy kept pushing his friends into the water. Finally, they all ganged up on him, caught hold of his legs and arms and swinging his body in air, prepared to throw him into the water. The boy started screaming, ‘I don’t know how to swim! I will die! I will die!’ His friends got tired of his drama. They let him be. Some minutes later, one of his friend talked him into going into the water. He agreed. Once in water, he almost drowned his friend by riding onto his head. ‘What’s wrong with you! You want us to get killed. Nothing will happen! I won’t let you go’. The boy wasn’t so sure, he kept repeating, ‘I don’t know. A boy drowned at this very spot a couple of days ago. Swear on your mother you won’t let go of my hand. I will die. Die’ The boy was a genuine dramabaaz, anybody could tell. There was also a slight chance that he even knew swimming. A couple of minutes later he was (while still holding onto his friend’s neck) splashing his legs wildly in water, exclaiming, ‘I can swim! I can swim!’. His other friend, standing at shore, threw a brick (deliberately mis-directed) at him. Of course, it missed and hit the water, creating a big sploosh. The boy looking genuinely offended told them, ‘Swear on mother, you won’t do that again. You want to see dead!’ All the boy were in their late teens. If you witness a scene like this anywhere else in this part of the world, boys having fun like this, there is a good chance that they will also be rhyming insults at each other’s mother and sister – it’s almost a way of showing endearment among males. It seems Kashmir (at least most of it) is still too idyllic to move in that direction. Pleasures are simple. Friends are friends. Mothers are mothers. Swimming is swimming.