Never say never

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I am one of those people who have their feet firmly planted on the ground. I am so profoundly rooted that it does need a certain caliber of galvanizing to uproot me. I am very focussed and use the most minimal of my resources to reach my goal. As candid as that confession can be, it can be devious. Yes I am pretty grounded but not in the way you are being led to believe. Every human being has a failing and mine is mobility. Dont get me wrong here, I do thank God for my two legs and the power to move them. I love to walk and find opportunities for that. I have exacted a mechanism where not much of me moves apart from the legs and the head tilting towards the direction before the body moves as though my mind is trying to show off its control. I have been called a robot by most people I know but I continue to love walking. Everything else is a challenge that my mind finds insurmountable. I was one of the few kids in school who never ran. Nothing could get me to run. Not the school assembly bell which I would hear while still on my way. Not a soaking rain. Not a traffic jam behind me on a narrow lane. Not Kabaddi. Not running and catching in games period. Not an urgent bathroom break. Not a bus driving off. Not the treadmill (till very very recently). Nothing. But I definitely know how to run. Then came cycling with all its agony. I learnt to cycle after I got scared that my brother might just throw in the towel and leave me to my mechanics (or robotics). I never managed to cycle even to the grocery store in the next lane. Learning to ride a two wheeler was not a necessity and was more fun. For me. Not for the people who taught me. Yes please note the use of "people". From then on it was always going to be a collaborative effort. It started with my dad getting me to learn to ride his Bajaj Chetak scooter behind the old library. It was a tree lined road so am confident that not many would have seen my dad's frustrated efforts and my antics. On to my cousins both of whom tried their best to get me to balance on the Luna without my legs acting as stabilizers. Then it was Rag. All I remember of that is hearing screams reminding me to use the brakes on her Kinetic Honda. Life rolled on without me having to worry too much abt two wheelers aside from the occasional jealousy factor. At about this time my dad bought a car. And there I was, getting to learn how to drive it on empty roads at 6:30 in the morning. I did such a great job of it that one day the coach decided to bring a car whose brakes wouldnt work. After a near miss of a head-on on the busy DVG Road traffic I was ready for my licence. That went off smoothly with me doing the exact opposite of what the examiner asked me to do. It was a miracle I heard anything at all with my heart pounding in my ears. With a brand new licence to show off, the routine trips to relatives' houses happened with me at the helm. And then one day that stopped. Abruptly. I still dont remember why. From then on, many lessons and attempts later I still dont drive very well. In the dozen odd years I have not been able to take the car for a confident spin even once. Everyday begins with a resolve and by the time we are ready to leave to work I start avoiding T's eyes lest he dangle the keys in front of me. From yesterday I have officially started swimming lessons. And that for a person who has been very scared to get into more than shin deep water. I have never played with the bigger waves on a beach. I have been wanting to learn how to swim from the time I was 15. I cant fathom why I did not despite the fact that my home was a stone's throw away from one of the best pools in Bangalore, the Basavanagudi one. I dont know how many more years I will need, to be able to kick my legs, splay my arms and move 10 feet in water. I was a nervous wreck for a week before the class and nearly toppled over from the side of the pool trying to enter it. My knees were knocking together when they told us to take a soak and needed a floater for help. I start kicking like a fish trapped in a net from the word go. It was only the floater tied around my waist that was making me look like I am in control. I am going to need all the resolve to get my feet from under me to kick out upright. What I liked yesterday was the fact that I like being in water like that. So I guess there will be many more lessons to come. And we will not cow down. We will only chew on all the learning and flick away all the usage.


Maybe there is a loose connection between the part of my brain controlling my motor skills and the one controlling my perceptions. My thoughts and dreams soar and dive, run and fly and they know no boundaries.