Where does one find a swimsuit in a small South Indian town? My Coimbatore friends tell me there are shops in their metro that sell demure swimwear with frills, skirts and other added flaps to suit every prude.
But the first time I needed a swimsuit, I was leaving for Cambodia in days and there was no time to drive two hours from Palakkad for a shopping trip. It would be far easier to pick up one in Cambodia, I knew. On our very first afternoon in Siem Reap, I found a stolid one-piece in burka black in which to soak respectably in the hotel pool.
We drop many of our inhibitions in a foreign country, and a five-star resort in India practically counts as foreign territory. I had no trouble sporting my one-piece on a recent domestic holiday, since I was so heavily cloaked in anonymity. There were shadows enough behind the potted palms and I would never again see the East European sun seekers who shared the pool with me.
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But I was holidaying with my little sister, who talked me into going where I had never gone before. We left our eyeglasses under the beach umbrella so that no one could see us and, together we crossed the broad Goa beach, wearing nothing but bathing suits, to enter the Arabian Sea. She literally held my hands for more than an hour as she taught me to bob up and down with each wave.
I can’t swim at all, yet. There are classes held in Palakkad by an excellent teacher but only yesterday did I plunge in for my first lesson, having grilled my husband beforehand on the dress code.
“What are the other women wearing?”
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“Are they middle-aged, too?”
“Were the men looking at them?”
“Were you looking?”
“Are there little boys?”
The other women did not wear sleeveless suits or show their knees, he said. Maybe they shopped in Coimbatore for their Sanskari swimwear, or online from an Iranian manufacturer. What also worried me was that everyone would not be a stranger.
Every morning, in the Kalpathy River, scores of women draped in just a thin towel bathe, wash their clothes, scrub their children, and dress out in the open before they head home. The men, often their own neighbours, bathe nearby but they keep their eyes front and life goes on. Perhaps the same etiquette would prevail at the swimming pool, I thought. And no one would recognise me without my glasses and Chettinad sari.
Still, I presented myself for class ridiculously wearing leggings over the suit. Polite nods, noncommittal smiles, eyes above the water line — it all went well till I muttered to my husband out the side of my mouth, “Which one is Dr M? Can’t see a thing without my glasses.”
And he called out, “Doctor! You remember my wife, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, we’ve met at the hospital.”
I watched my cloak of anonymity drift away to the deep end. Then again, I was no more or less naked than before. Today the leggings came off, and I learned to float.