In the season of Allergy – Shaivi wants to go swimming

  “I want to go swimming,” declared my younger daughter.

                I have been known for pushing my daughters towards sports and physical activities. It was a hot summer day when swimming was the only option for activity. The swimming pool was barely a hundred meters from my house. Yet, the statement filled me with a sense of guilty pain.

                Shaivi had been suffering from a severe form of seasonal allergy in her eyes. She was on heavy medications, which gave her much relief. However, her previous visits to the swimming pool had greatly aggravated her suffering, and we were scared for her vision.

                And yet she stood, her swimming costume in her hand, even as her elder sister came out fully dressed in swimming costume over which she had put on her T shirt – so as to waste the least possible time in preparation to jumping in the inviting, chlorinated waters of the swimming pool.

                Shaivi is a person with good powers of reasoning, and we appealed to this aspect in trying to convince her that swimming was not the best way for her to have fun, as it would cause her to suffer from eye – allergy and she would be uncomfortable for a very long time. She understood that – but came up with counter – reasoning. How could something that was good for her sister be bad for her! So I tried another strategy – I promised to take her to the park instead. She was willing, as long as her sister accompanied her. A suggestion for another activity was also denied for the same reason.

                With a lot of difficulty, we convinced her to go out with me for a walk instead. She gave in after a lot of reasoning, and it was decided that I would go with her while my wife went with the elder daughter.

                I braced myself for a long series of questions. My wife and I never discourage questions from our children, and we try our best to answer them, or be truthful about not knowing the answers while discussing possibilities. Both the girls wear us out with their questions, but we have accepted it as part of parenthood.

                Her very first question during the walk, however, was one that I was scared of. “Why do I have this allergy?” she asked.

                I explained that some people just get some problems. I also told that she has many other qualities which other children do not have – her ability to jump and talk incessantly, for instance. This brought a smile to her face, and she started telling me some story about one of her classmates. The topic of conversation fleeted form friends to teachers, to the chirping of birds, to the copious amount of grass, the stupidity of monkeys, the intelligence of monkeys, the funny types of seeds, and running in quick suspension, before returning to swimming.

                “When can I go swimming,? she asked. She was not satisfied with my vague reply of “soon” and wanted a firm date. I promised to ask the ophthalmologist when we next visited her. We then talked about the ophthalmologist, her children, the games that they play, and again came back to swimming.

She declared that she liked splashing in water, and wanted to learn swimming like her sister so that she could have more fun. She confided that earlier, she was afraid to put her head in the water, but had been practicing bubbling techniques as had been taught by her sister.

I tried to change the topic to cycling – another feat that she was yet to accomplish in spite of having tried for almost three years. In fact, she loved to be on cycle, but had been scared to try the equipment without the training wheels. Of late, she enjoyed just sitting on the cycle and made no efforts to pedal. She answered that her legs were a little too weak, and that swimming would improve her leg power, and she would soon learn to cycle.

I was at my wits end. So, I took her across to a small ditch – around two feet across – and asked her to jump over it. She was scared. I held her hand, told her to follow me, and we both jumped across the ditch. She liked the experience. It took her three or four more guided jumps for her to master her techniques and her confidence. Over the next half an hour or so, she jumped across the ditch at least fifty times, and ran to collect different types of leaves and touch the barks of different types of trees. We collected some funny looking twigs, and discovered a family of squirrels, whose activities she watched with a lot of glee and frequent comments on their cuteness, intelligence and stupidity. This continued till my elder daughter emerged from the swimming pool with her friend, accompanied by my wife.

Two days later, my wife and both the children went to my hometown for the summer vacation. We had promised Shaivi that we would try to introduce her to swimming during holidays if her allergy did not flare up.

I called up my wife two days into vacation to ask if they had tried going to the swimming pool.

“No,” she said. “They’re too busy playing with their cousins. The swimming pool is forgotten.”