Column

On the days that I manage to sneak in some time in the evening, I go swimming. It is perhaps the one time I revert to my childhood, when evenings were a source of eternal wonder. After a day at school — lessons, projects, peer pressure and bi-polar teachers alternating between total indulgence and deep disapproval — the fabric of the evening was uniform and a never-ending series of delights.

Spotting a monarch butterfly raised the adrenalin, as did a bicycle ride downhill with bells ringing and wind in the hair. Every moment was sucked of its last dreg of marrow. And so as I walk to the pool, I find myself slipping back into that time when sucking on a blade of grass was more heady than a tequila shot.

Now a swimming pool could be the dullest place if one was looking for a certain adventure buzz. But there is something particularly cathartic about spanning the length of the pool almost mechanically. There are neither water currents nor boulders to be wary of as in a natural water body, no fauna or flora of any sort to deal with either, except perhaps a dead leaf or a terrified pond skater. Almost as if one was in childhood, the mind is free to wander and swoop on anything it pleases.

A few children are playing in and around the pool-house. Loud shrieks of excitement rent the air as they play a game that’s a mixture of catch and hide n’ seek. There are hardly any dark and secret places for these children to hide, but it doesn’t prevent them from making the most of what is available. If ever there was a true life representation of carpe diem, this is it.

Perhaps it is this we start losing as we grow older. Just as we find it impossible to suck on a toe (unless one was a contortionist), find the pleasures of eating a raw mango diminishing, or the wonder of a firefly glowing in the dark a matter-of-fact occurrence, our ability to seize the day fades as we leave childhood.

Every year we commemorate a day for the children as though they are the ones who need it. Wise creatures that they are, they draw more out of every day while we knot ourselves deeper and deeper into life’s coils.

What we need, perhaps, is a day for us to learn from children. To once again seize the day before it ceases to be.

Anita Nair is the author of the novels The Better Man, Ladies Coupe and Mistress