H2O

Jetting against the waters on a fast speedboat with the waves splashing on your face.
River rafting down the Ganges.

Sounds exciting? I agree but please count me out of all this - I'd rather sit back and listen to my friends yapping away on how adventurous it was. Its not that I don't like the thrill but I’d rather rock climb or go on a jungle trek.

Yes. The truth is "I am scared of water"

Born and brought up in a town which was pretty much away from the sea, my annual excursions to the beach in Pondicherry and Chennai (yucckkk) during my childhood had been very pleasurable except that I’d rarely ventured beyond 20 meters from the safest spots. Of course, I loved the waves drenching me wet, the shells getting stuck on my feet, the sands making me itchy for a nice hot bath but nothing on earth ever made me step beyond 20 meters - despite seeing kids half my height and age swimming in gay abandon in the middle of the sea (okie, that's another 20 meters further inside)

Looking back, I now remember how jittery I was during that short 5 minute motorboat drive from Juhu to Madh Island -  clinging onto the railing for dear life whilst a fisherwoman, who'd probably gone up and down that stretch all her life, balanced a huge basket on her head and still stood near the edge caring a damn for her safety. Brave woman she was.

Just to illustrate how much I fear water, let me recollect a nice incident from the not-so-distant past. My friends and I were seeing Titanic at Devi (or was it Sathyam) and when that famous scene where Leo and Kate stand at the edge and spread their arms out and enjoy the breeze and the beautiful blue sea around them, whilst my friends were rediscovering their romantic self, my inner voice kept shouting at me "He's gonna fall and the damn fool doesn't even have a life boat."

Talking of life boats, here's another humorous incident. A few months back, one of my oldest friends at work wanted to go swimming at our Corporate HQ. We have a lovely pool out there but more on it later. After a very persuasive lecture on how swimming helped one stay fit, the next five minutes were spent in him drilling into my head all the theory that went into the art of swimming - everything from hand-leg co-ordination to breathing and what not. Finally I was asked to change into trunks and just when we were about to dive into (not exactly, but again I will explain this later) the pool, I asked this million dollar question "Where is my life boat?". My friend tells me that amongst the on-lookers, some eyes popped and some jaws dropped. But I don’t remember any such thing. He exaggerates, as usual. I thought I was perfectly justified in being cautious. Didn't they teach these people at school that "Its better safe than sorry". Okie, now for that twist in the tale. The pool's depth was only 4 feet. You heard it right. 4 feet. But still, I was justified, wasn't I....No prizes for guessing that i didn't get into the pool that day. Went and played TT for an hour and beat the living daylights out of all and sundry. There's got to be a law or something which bans life-endangering sports like swimming and promotes healthy games like TT :-)

So many more stories but I am sure you folks have funnier stuff to narrate. So will leave it here...