There is nothing new about me getting embarrassed in my life. But this is something which I really don’t know if I will have to be giving the same heading as the LKG incident one. So if you haven’t still checked that out yet, please do!

There is this big inspiration in all of us to become an all-rounded individual, like in one of those adds where banupriya comes up saying “en paiyan schoola extra pannuran”. I didn’t know who the hell invented this word, since most of the time all of us would get into this kind of situation. I don’t mean to give out a mini lecture of how not to be extra, though basically I mean how I got embarrassed when I did something like that.

The final year of my college life was nothing short of exuberance. I did everything I could. If anyone comes up to me & asks me to do something, I would be like “Come on!” screaming the hell out. Apart from being in the final year of the college life, captaining the college cricket team, captaining the university cricket team, captaining the Bangalore city cricket team, being the sports secretary of the year, conducting the All India sports festival & trying to be normal, I wanted to participate in another sport apart from cricket. So bang the opportunity came one day when a swimmer asked me for a help since they were short of one in the university games team.

“Somebody stop me” was supposed to be the slogan, which I ignored. “I will” came the reply from me & even before I realized I was standing with a swimming shorts which was no better than an underwear, on the jumping jack. My job was just to participate in an event in which they were just two participants from my college, which would help my college grab some points even then I finished sixth. Apparently there were just five participants for that particular event, which was 50m breast stroke. The other two guys participating from my college were pro’s, out of which one guy won the overall title in that competition. There was shikha tandon, the Indian Olympic swimmer from my college in the girls section, too.

There were few instructions given to me as to how to complete the swim. It was not that I didn’t know to swim. I had learned to swim when I was about ten, but that didn’t mean I was a fish. All I was told was to take my own time to complete the swim since there were just four more apart from me taking part. There was a decent crowd in the venue, owing to the fact that my college was in vicinity. So almost half the lecturer strength was present that, which itself sent me a shiver up my tummy. I knew all of them personally & they had come to plenty of my cricket matches, some of which I had played exceeding well too. But this was different, standing half-naked in front of a big crowd. It was not that I had a great body to “blow my own horn” about. So this was very unusual.

When the whistle was blown, I was still looking at Ankur (one of the pro’s, who won the overall, from my college) to say the “dive”. I was given a lane at the right end of the pool so that we leave the rest to compete, since it was obvious that they were pro’s. The dive itself took like few seconds & when my head was out of the water, ankur was half way. I was blown. The mistake I did was trying to come within three ranks, which made me to push as much as I could.

Ten minutes after the rest of the gang finished their swim, I reached safely. There was once a point of time when the rest finished seventy five percent when I had just gone one third of the way. So when the swim was over, I was surprised to see my name displayed in the list as third.

One guy apparently did a free style for a breast stroke & the other guy climbed out of the pool half way towards one end of it, which made me crowned as the third. It was like an advertisement when I reached home with my mom asking me the result. I was like “I finished third ma”. When my dad came home he had the brains to ask how many people participated. You would all guess the obvious answer- THREE!!!!