என் அருமை அத்தையே

Growing up, I did not get to spend as much time with extended family. There was the usual familial disputes between my mother's side and my father's side. When the disputes ebbed, I would sneak over to see my grandparents and aunts. When the disputes fell, they would occasionally visit us and I could more freely visit them. As for my mother's extended family, they lived far away in other cities in India and I very rarely got to see them. So you could say I grew up in a rather lean family environment, just my immediate family. I don't remember many "functions" as we refer to birthday parties and such. As a matter of fact, I don't remember any get togethers save for the rare event usually a festival, when by some miracle, a lot of the family members somehow gathered at one place.

That's my youngest aunt!! Circa late 80s. This is a clipped photo as I wanted to keep my young cousin, only four years or so at that time, out of the picture. He is in his 30s now and sent me this and another picture. My aunt is seen holding a flute in her right hand. In the other photo, which I have not posted, she has handed the flute to my cousin, who is dressed as Lord Krishna.. probably his birthday celebration. You can see how barebones the house is.. and how innocent and pretty my aunt is.

My aunt on my father's side, the youngest of four kids, always greeted me with, "மருமஹனே !!". That translates to "Hey, Son-in-law !!". Because my Dad had me in his early 20s, she was only about a dozen years or so older than me. So it was unlikely that I would ever marry a future daughter of hers. She knew that. But for her, that greeting was a term of endearment and she would hail me with enthusiasm. And I understood that and would respond with, "என் அருமை அத்தையே !!". That translates to "Oh, my beloved Aunt !!". We used to sneak out to the movies, play பல்லாங்குழி at her house and walk to the market together. There was not much else to do in Madurai in the late 80s. Traffic was nowhere near today's density. There were no high rise buildings. Madurai city was more of a town. The days were a bit cooler, less noisier and less dustier. We only had Ambassador and Fiat cars on the road.

Around the turn of the 90s, my beloved aunt passed away. I was maybe 15 then. She was probably in her mid-to-late 20s. I feel bad that I do not remember her birthday or year of passing. I am a bit hesitant to ask my other aunts or Dad.. don't want to stir sad memories for them. Apparently on that fateful day.. it was a suicide threat on her part that ended up as a horrible accident with her engulfed in flames. She died two days later at the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai. I did go see her. After 30 years, I still remember the exact words and her pleading voice upon seeing me arrive by her bedside, "Kobi, கொஞ்சம் தண்ணி கொடுப்பா". There was no need for her to be so.. so.. polite. But I understand now that she must have asked everyone around her first.. and was hoping I would finally get her some water. But I had been specifically told upon entering the ward to not give her water. I don't remember my response to my aunt and this is maddening to me today.

Did I try to soothe her with my 15 year old wisdom that it was best she not drink any water? Or did I slowly back out of there instead? Was she heartbroken with my response and eventual departure from the ward? In a country where fairer skin is blatantly favored over darker skin, what did she feel about her chances in society once she recovered and had to get around with burnt skin? How much pain was she in those 48 hours or so between the accident and her last breath? My grandfather, goodness rest his soul, in his haste to put out the flames, had thrown a bucketful of water on her. I didn't see any IV. So no morphine drip. Was she given painkiller injections? I have seen how carefully burn victims are kept in special beds, provided oxygen, painkillers, etc. in western hospitals. Back then, my aunt was in a crowded ward strewn with patients all over the place. Some were on the floor. Some were on cots. Their visitors were milling around. My aunt was sitting up on a cot with no mattress, I think. Did she reach out to hold my hands? I think she might have! What did she see in my eyes? Horror? Pity? Concern? Was she wearing some sort of clothing? I remember her torso was all.. dark. So she was at least partly nude then.. in front of everyone? Or were her original clothing still sticking to her?  The patient next to her and their family were staring at us with stricken eyes. My aunt's condition and appearance was a traumatic experience to them as well.

I don't remember how I made my way back home. I am pretty sure I was at the hospital for only about five minutes or so. Probably my Mom and another aunt who were with my dying aunt told me to leave. I like to think that they stayed with her throughout the ordeal in hospital. I could have stayed up until her last breath. Her favorite nephew. I remember being back home with another cousin and do not recall much until the next day or so. That following day, the day of my aunt's death (or was it the day after?), my Dad and brother arrived by train from the northern part of India where my Dad had been working for a couple of years. My brother had been living with him for a few months at that point. Was my aunt's body held in some dark, fricking morgue while waiting for my Dad to arrive? Everyone, except me and my cousin, went to a place called Thathaneri to cremate my aunt's already burnt husk. Why were we left behind? Did I not want to go? I googled Thathaneri recently and came across a few recent pictures. I was aghast at the appearance of the place. I have been to American funeral homes and seen the elegance and sheltered process in place. But looking at pictures of Thathaneri, I was besides myself with grief. Is this the place where everyone turned their backs and walked away from my beloved aunt's ashes? Her ashes would have dispersed in the wind or washed away under the rain over the weeks.

The reader might think that I just remembered my aunt.. in the winter of 2022 after not having thought of her for 30 years. I did not completely forget her. I would remember her every time I visited Madurai over the years and drove on certain streets that my aunt lived with my grandparents. My other aunts, her older sisters, had married and lived in their own homes either in Madurai or Virudunagar. But my youngest aunt and my grandparents lived in, usually, a two-room "house" not more than 200 sq. ft in one of the streets near where I lived. And the roof would be one of those aluminum roofs. No air-conditioning. Nothing. Can you imagine how hot such a place might have got in the height of summer? This is because they were completely reliant on my Dad for their living. I think my Dad could only afford to rent such a small house for them. I remember three such small houses and two bigger houses -- indicating my Dad's growing prosperity -- near my house that they lived in over a period of seven years or so. No idea why they moved so frequently. The best part was they did not have any furniture. No beds. No sofa. No TV. Nothing. So my aunt would not have had to do any heavy lifting every time they moved house. I am hoping that the most she would have had to lift is when my grandmother probably told her to go to a grocery store to get rice and some essential, gave her a "koodai" (small basket) or "manja pie" (cheap yellow cloth bag) and sent her on her way. I can imagine my aunt putting on her worn sandals and trudging over to the local store under a blazing sun. And only a few years later, I would get on my first flight to leave the country. Getting on an aircraft would not even have been a remote possibility to her. I don't ever remember having seen her in a car or two-wheeler. When we needed to go farther out in the city, we took a hand-operated rickshaw and very rarely an auto-rickshaw. Did she think of herself as living in perpetual hardship and crave a more comfortable, permanent home? But I remember her as only a genial person.. up until that last day.

My grandfather could only afford to educate my Dad and his eldest daughter. The other two aunts might have got to 10th grade or so.. my youngest aunt possibly even not that. She could read and I remember when she visited our house one early morning all dolled up. She promptly sat in a chair cross-legged and started reading a magazine. Kumutham or Ananda Vikatan? I can't remember. But I am not sure of her writing abilities. How did she spend her evenings with her parents? My grandfather was adamant that young people should be home by sunset. Remember there was no TV at home and it was usually a two-room house comprising of a kitchen and living area, where everyone lounged, slept and ate. There would have been an outhouse for bathing and toilet. How did they deal with mosquitoes on those rainy days? I hate to think that she had no job prospects and was entirely reliant on others for basic necessities. Today, there are makeup channels on YouTube where "influencers" titter over nuances. But my aunt had access only to talcum powder for her cheeks, ink -- not writing ink -- for her eyebrows and coconut oil for her hair. She probably wore cheap bangles and such bought at "fancy" stores. Did she ever experience the joys of wearing jewellery or an expensive saree? What was her favorite food? What was her favorite movie or song?

Did she ever experience the joys of being intimate with a lover? Probably not. This saddens me to a great deal. She was waiting to get married off and it was actually the topic of her own marriage, etc. which somehow led to her self-immolation. I am vague on the details myself and do not want to speculate. I don't remember her having any friends close to her age that she could confide in and just talk freely. There were a couple of young women in her last years. A Kutty Nafisa, who I thought was pretty hot but that I met only a couple of times. There was also Jayashree, the daughter of one of our landlords. So I knew her pretty well. She had a habit of wearing male-oriented clothes like lungi and shirt. She also had a habit of wrapping her pigtails around the periphery of her scalp. Think of one of those Greek Goddesses or Egyptian queens with pretty serpents whipping about over their heads. We were lower middle class and, with my Dad's then recent career prospects, on our way to becoming middle class. You could say Jayashree was already middle class. Given her appearance and vibe and mannerisms, my aunt probably felt she would not get another interesting friend like hers. She might have developed an infatuation with Jayashree. When Jayashree became engaged as part of an arranged marriage, my aunt took it pretty hard. The thought of losing a long-time friend combined with her own uncertain situation from recent years shifting from one house to another and just following my grandparents around.. must have led to a great amount of angst. Remember she did not have anyone to confide in. And while our elders were honest and hard-working, they were severely handicapped when it comes to communication, preemptive or otherwise. They simply followed societal rules and did not know better. I am not blaming them for what happened. But I keep thinking about how my aunt's life might have flourished if the people around her had been a bit more sensitive to her feelings.. and just sat down calmly and listened to her. But since I was not privy to every discussion that might happened, I will speculate no further.

The year after my aunt's death, I got a Kinetic Honda as I turned 16 or 17. I had also started reading non-academic books voraciously. Then there was the excitement of high school.. and the typical gossip that came with that experience: this boy being talked in "connection" with that girl, etc. My Dad had got a job in the US by then. Between my books and figuring out my own little thoughts, I did not miss him as much. Three years passed and by the time I emigrated to the US for college, my aunt had passed completely from my memory. I don't know why I did not think of her. Had I involuntarily suppressed memories of her? Maybe only a trained psychologist can answer that. But I would like to think that I  had suppressed my memories as a means of coping with the immense loss of my favorite aunt. Unfortunately, suppressing memories also means that I have now forgotten a lot of my interactions with her.

Quite a few of my friends had lost family and parents in 2021 to COVID. John Meadows, one of my idols, passed away and that hit me hard. One of my closest friends from my childhood lost his big puppy, which devastated him. He actually remembered a couple of things about my aunt.. one of them was going to the Kamal Hassan movie Vetrivela as a group. I was happy to hear about his memories, however vague they might have been. I was tempted to reach out to all my other friends to see if they remembered anything about my aunt. Then I decided against it as that would be out of character for me. Anyway, all these occurrences of 2021 somehow suddenly triggered memories of my aunt and a massive amount of grief in December 2021. I took two days off work because I could not focus my thoughts. Then I decided to write this post. You can call it a tribute. I wanted to write this as a way of expressing myself and getting out any suppressed feelings once and for all.

What if she had not passed on but survived that ordeal.. or never had had that ordeal in the first place? My aunt and I likely would have been all over the length and breadth of Madurai on my Kinetic Honda. How can I say that? Because I gave a lot of people rides on my scooter. I took my Mom shopping. I dropped off the mothers of my friends at their home after they had finished visiting with my Mom. I transported neighbors to important appointments, etc. And I would have enjoyed attending her wedding, riding my scooter around to run any needed errands as we prepared for the wedding. And I would have visited her own eventual family every time I visited India. And something tells me that I would have been prepared to bring her to the US had I even got a whiff that she was not happy in her marriage. She might not have wanted to emigrate. But I would have ensured that she knew she had options. I cannot tell if any of her meager possessions are still preserved deep in my family's aging dressers in Madurai and Virudunagar. But I would have made sure she was comfortable living with me. I would have helped her learn to drive. I am not into volunteering. But I do pretty well 1-on-1 and have mentored a few people over the years. Those things just happened naturally as people tend to gravitate to me. So, I would have attempted to get my aunt started on a skill of her choosing.. and I would have worked with her on it too with a goal of seeing her become financially independent. One of my friends helped put his wife through college and she is now a nurse and financially independent. So why couldn't I have done the same for my aunt? My own flesh and blood.

Anatomy of a scene

Note: This was originally posted in this blog on 7/30/2008.



Elation! That's what I felt. I clutched the novels, one from Alistair MacLean and another from Louis L'amour, as I left the library and started riding home on a rickety bicycle. The final exams were over. I could now look forward to six weeks of summer holidays before my junior year in high school commenced. I didn't have much to do but read, enjoy my solo rides out into the hot country and hang out with friends. I wasn't as given to spending a lot of time doing the latter. So I was spending a lot of time doing the other stuff.

That particular morning, I had found two of my favorite authors on the same day in the dusty chaos that was the little library in Narimedu! But before I reached home to devour my finds for the day, I had to make a stop at a friend's house in LIC Colony. After half an hour there, I was getting hungry for both food and literary content and so decided to leave. But rather than make my way back through Sellur, I decided to take a detour through Krishnapuram and then Reserve Lines (so called because that neighborhood housed quarters for the city's reserve police force).


Click for a larger view.

At the border, where I had to cross into Krishnapuram, there was a flat barren area littered with shrunken mesquite and what I think may have been giant milkweed. Some claimed that the milky sap of the latter was toxic. Anyway, it was an untouched piece of land in an otherwise intensely built neighborhood. Some of the plants were standing in black muddy spots with dragonflies buzzing about. It seemed I could make my way through the mesquite to get to the main road that ran along most of Krishnapuram. So rather than use a potholed, characterless street, I decided to go through the flatter terrain of the mesquite. Halfway in, my bicycle chain came undone. So I put the bicycle on its stand and set about putting the greasy chain back on its front sprocket. A fairly easy task. As I stood up and wiped my hands on a jutting branch of mesquite, I took in the scene around me.

There was an elderly man with a crudely made walking stick ambling along on the potholed street I had just avoided. A housewife, standing at the entrance to her house on the other side of that street, was haggling with a rural looking woman selling vegetables door-to-door. I could hear the ceaseless traffic noise of two-wheelers coming from the direction of Krishnapuram. Birds were chirping in a variety of trees -- banana and palm primarily -- surrounding the houses in the vicinity. An imperceptible aroma of Tulasi briefly permeated the air. And in the miserly shade provided by the mesquite and milkweed, a couple of stray dogs were resting and taking a nice respite from the slowly rising heat and humidity of the day. A white butterfly was wandering around aimlessly in the contrasty light. A scraggly looking donkey, with likely the same idea as the dogs, was slowly making its way into the mesquite. It saw me and stopped. I could see that it didn't want to go back into the streets filled with the infestation of humans and automobile dust. But it was also wary of me. Very wary. There was a battle-worn look about it from living off the streets and possibly putting up with local kids who no doubt pelted it with stones when they were of a mind to.
The sun beat down on me and sweat started trickling its way into the small of my back. I thought back to the recently concluded school year. It had been a difficult decision to make. To switch schools, I mean. I had had a great time at the school. All eight years of it. My friends attended that school and the campus itself was only a stone's throw away from my house. But I simply couldn't bear going through those Tamil grammar lessons anymore and if what I had heard was true, the experience would be even more painful during the last two years of school. And they offered French as an alternative in the new school. Well, maybe the decision was an easy one after all.

A distant rumble disturbed my thoughts. The dogs were on the alert with their ears pricked. The donkey was still there gazing at the ground, resigned to destiny. I pitied its situation and considered taking it home. Then I thought of the look on my mother's face and decided against it. What a life the poor animal must be having compared to my own carefree one. Now the skies were darkening. Where I lived, tropical thunderstorms came out of nowhere. As the air turned heavier and the dragonflies settled down, the mesquite and trees around me started to dance hesitantly to sharp gusts of wind. Dust was being kicked up in spurts. I mounted my bicycle and started furiously pedalling home still a good 2 KM away. As I reached the main road, I briefly glanced back. The donkey was meandering its way into the mesquite. A whole lot of good that was going to do in torrential rainfall. Then as I cycled past a workshop, the scene vanished from view.


"You abandoned me, Gopi! Et tu...you brute!"

My stomach was rumbling by the time I arrived at my house. With heavy clouds hovering over the city, the day had turned almost dark. Men and women, with the latter's saris billowing to a wind that was now blowing steadily, were hurrying along on the street. The guy who owned a tea shop at the corner of our street was quickly bringing in his benches. I put the bicycle in our verandah and breathed a collective sigh of relief and exertion as I reached for the books secured in the bike's rear rack. A few seconds later, the heavens opened.

How I learnt to swim

Coming next Friday: The anatomy of a chase.

The Indian Experience

This background is necessary since, unlike here in the US where kids grow up swimming and take being in the water for granted, it wasn't exactly a sporting culture that I grew up in. If you have always had a fear of water, you should read this background.

The only bodies of water I saw during my childhood in Madurai, India were local waterholes that were more ponds than lakes and completely covered by green algae. Only buffaloes and little kids, there to watch over the buffaloes, with no thought for hygiene could be found cooling off in them. And there were always flies and mosquitoes buzzing about when it wasn't too hot. Us middle class kids stayed away. Sure, there were puddles of water and temporary little streams -- is there a fully working drainage system in India? -- by the roadside left behind by one of those tropical thunderstorms that came out of nowhere but I couldn't learn to swim in them. You would like to see that, would you now?

Scratch. Scratch. Not my photo.

One time a bunch of my friends bicycled out to the countryside slightly north west of the city almost a third of the way toward Alanganallur to just hang out and experience nature. After lunching from the little food we had brought with us in the stringy shade of a vineyard (okra?), we discovered a little canal that was used to irrigate the crops in the surrounding area. The water flowed slowly and came up to shin height and we cooled off and had great fun. We returned a couple more times for that experience.

The road to Alanganallur? Well, it looks close enough. Not my photo.

The only swimming pool was in the chamber of commerce's property across from the Gandhi Museum and, every time I bicycled past that place, I would stand up on the bike's pedals with scant regard for traffic and gaze with star-studded eyes over the compound wall at the pool until it disappeared from view. Nobody seemed to use that pool. Thankfully, that particular road never had heavy traffic either.

I have had four brushes with ocean swimming in India. The first was when my family bought a piece of land near the ocean in the Thondi area. A couple of employees who worked at a restaurant my Dad owned and who were from the Thondi area had recommended that purchase. The continental shelf extends quite a bit on the Coromandel coast and the waters especially around Thondi were very calm. As a result, it was an area that seemed to have a lot of tiny fishing hamlets. Easier to launch and dock small sail boats. And great for someone with zero swimming skills. I remember waddling around in the ocean with waters up to knee height for hours on end over several trips I took to the area, sometimes with family and sometimes with my Dad's employees' families who lived in a small, peaceful village nearby. The best part was always the bullock cart ride from their village to the always uninhabited beaches and back under moonlight on country roads.

Mahabalipuram, I think. Thondi was mostly villages and palm trees. Not my photo.

My second time in the ocean was during a high school class trip to Kerala. I don't much remember the details as our full attention was always on our female classmates, who refused to be lured into waters any deeper than ankle height. Sigh.

About a year before I came to the US, some of my friends took a little trip during summer holidays to Chennai, where we stayed in the house of a relative of one of my buddies. When you are in Chennai, you gravitate to the Marina beach sooner or later. This was my third brush with ocean swimming. The waves came in huge rolls and you could see adventurous kids being lifted and brought into shore. It was an exciting afternoon for a ride. As usual, most of the Indian people just waded in ankle or knee deep while remaining fully clothed. I went in with much gusto, was promptly lifted up by a wave and after several moments of sheer terror when my feet were completely off the floor, I somehow found myself back on the beach. I wouldn't go into the ocean again until years later in the United States.

During my second visit to India, seven or so years after I had emigrated to the US, most of our family from all over the country gathered in Madurai for the wedding of a cousin of mine. Some of us men decided to visit Rameshwaram before the wedding. One of my Uncles couldn't understand why I wouldn't go in the ocean there. He kept trying to push me to go in. Man didn't know when to give up. Finally, I relented, dipped a big toe in, did a 180 and sprinted back up the beach toward the temple area. I would sit there on a bench under the hot sun just content watching life move by on a busy historic street until the boys returned from the beach. My fourth brush with the ocean had been just that...a brush.

Ok, so that was some background material there, huh?! It was a good visit in time for me, actually. Anyway, after that third brush, I had developed a huge fear of water.

The American experience

After several embarrassing attempts at swimming at the pool during my college days at UMASS, Boston, I gave up. Shortly after, I paid a kid I found on Craigslist to teach me to swim in a suburban apartment complex pool in Stoughton. A couple of classes got us nowhere. It was spring and the water was cold. And I wouldn't put my head under water. Plus there was a good looking brunette around my age who hung around the pool in shorts and t-shirts and we kept catching each other's eye. Caretaker, maybe. But she was distracting and I was very self-conscious. Next up was a visit a few years later -- and just before that second trip to India I mentioned above -- to Stowe, Vermont with a bunch of friends during spring. We stayed at a motel-resort with a heated outdoor pool. Here I learned to swim with the guidance of a friend and had worked up the courage to swim up to the deep water mark on a single breath and always with my head above water when our trip ended and we had to return to Boston. As a matter of fact, I was up in that area for a couple of days just this week but I couldn't get a room in that resort (ski season).

Morrisville-Stowe State Airport in Northern Vermont. Not my photo.

My fourth attempt at learning to swim happened sometime in the late 2000s. Again, my friend, who was Indian by the way, agreed to coach me at the pool at the Marriott in Quincy. The Marriott then allowed non-guests access to its pool through a membership program. Anyway, I finally learnt to swim. Here is how it went down:

The first thing you need is the right attitude. Fear of failure will hold you back. By this time, I was sick of myself from chickening out and I was driven to succeed. I had had similar troubles with learning to snowboard and I eventually mastered that after a couple of seasons of trying. I took the attitude that I had developed on the slopes and simply transferred it to the pool. To put this in cold-blooded terms, I saw my body as a vehicle that needed to go from point A to point B. And I asked myself a question: What do I need to do to get there? Then I applied. Just applied. There were other visualizations that helped. I imagined all those beautiful women and all those beach boys having fun in the water while I sat bereft on the shore watching them. Alone. I didn't want to be on the outside anymore. I thought of Dara Torres' comeback. Next thing I knew I had my head under the water during my first session at the pool.

Then I came out of the water deliberately slowly. It started of as one single breast stroke. Then I landed on my feet and took several breaths. One more stroke. Stand on my feet. Repeat. Now I was a third of the way into the lane. I decided to turn back. One more stroke. Stand on my feet. Repeat. The temptation was there to do multiple strokes. And I am quite sure some of you would have done just that especially if you didn't have fear of water. Well, kudos to you. But I decided I wasn't going to give in to pressure because a bunch of kids and their mothers were (may be) watching me. I had a plan. I was going to apply it. I was fucking applying it. Don't ruin it now.

All this time, my friend diligently swam with me and continued encouraging me. Then the next session, I did the same thing. But I would stay under water a little more and get used to that world enveloping my senses. I would revel in it. I would move my eyes left and right while keeping my head still like Charlie Chaplin would. I was toying with destiny. Or so, I told myself. In his book HMS Ulysses, Alistair MacLean describes the travails of British sailors in WWII whose Destroyer gets torpedoed in the cold waters of the northern Atlantic and they find themselves in the water in a burning oil slick...oil from their own ship. Eventually, the skipper of another British ship in the convoy decides to relieve those burning men of their suffering and orders his crew to run over them. He couldn't stop to rescue them as then his own vessel would be a sitting duck. And the men in the water understand and are grateful as the hull bears down on them. I kept that scene in mind during every session. This was a 4 feet deep pool I was in, for crying out aloud! I think it was six weeks later, at the rate of around two to three sessions a week, that I swam end to end and while breathing properly. I remember that moment, after that first full lap, when I put my head against the wall of the pool, away from it all, and just stood there with my arms hanging limply by my side. Yet another piece of sh*t I had had to figure out by myself. Felt good though. My friend and I went to get a drink at the hotel bar after. I drove back into Boston and he went south to Weymouth.

6' 0". Gulp. Not my photo.

The biggest issue I had was with breathing. Up until my first successful lap, I was actually doing full laps for a couple of sessions but always on a single breath. I was just afraid to breathe normally. So I analyzed the issue and decided to apply a different tack. I went back to what I did in my first session: One stroke. Stand up. Repeat. Except as I stood up slowly, I would exhale just before my head broke the surface. The idea was to get used to how it felt to be exhaling under water. Then it happened. I did two strokes in succession and I breathed! It happened this way. As I stood up after the first stroke, I exhaled, my head broke the surface, I inhaled and deliberately let my legs fold underneath me. After that, it was easy. My words can only be so fluid. You have to try it to experience that.

Lessons learned

1. It doesn't matter what you eat as a solid meal before swimming but by the time you get to the pool, your stomach should be empty. I would much rather go in a little hungry than with a little food still in my stomach. You need mental clarity to stay focused and food in the stomach means blood is where it shouldn't be. After many years swimming, I find that this is the tip that makes the biggest difference in the quality of my swim sessions.
2. The first stroke you likely will get good at is the breast stroke. Fight the temptation to learn all the strokes right away. Get good at doing laps with your first stroke style. Then try to learn the others.
3. You might have to go through two or three masks before you find the right one. Anticipate this happening. When you are prepared, you won't get frustrated with your learning experience.
4. Spend minimal time at Sports Authority or reading about perfecting swim technique from the champions. Instead try to hit the pool as often as you can. While you should get your swim gear right, don't fret about it too much or about what the pros are doing. Otherwise, you might never learn to swim.
5. If your gym has a hot tub or steam room, use it after the swim. Somehow, a hot tub is much sweeter after a hard swim. It will be your reward for your dedication. But don't spend time looking for a gym with a pool and a hot tub. Just find one with a pool and start paddling.
6. See if you can rope in someone -- a friend, colleague, family member -- to swim with you. My friend made it clear that I could take advantage of his time at the pool. You will then be forced to show up at the pool because you know that someone else would be waiting for you.
7. Finally, bring attitude to your sessions. Put all other aspects of your life -- career, girlfriend, car problems, etc. --- aside and get into swim mode even before you get to the locker room. Like me, think of one or two people or events that can motivate you to conquer fear and concentrate on analysis and application. I would start doing this visualization as soon as I parked my car and shut off the engine. And it greatly helped reset my mind for the swim session ahead.

In conclusion

I have always been confident sunbathing at the beaches in New England ever since I arrived in these here parts. But that was largely because I had worked hard to build a fantastic physique. However, I rarely went in the water. But trust me: when you learn to swim, it opens up another entirely new world to you. You become much less self-conscious about appearing in a swimsuit. There is a certain confidence that will start projecting in your bearing. And this confidence will allow you to assimilate with people that you might normally have found standoffish. You and they suddenly become more approachable to each other. I am not going to elaborate on this. But once you learn to swim, you will realize right away what I am talking about here.