Confession of a Prohibited Sea Swim?

This was the year 1972 … we had finished schooling at Gurutalawa and enrolled on the Senior School at Mt Lavinia. The country was in a bad economic state after a failed insurgency. An insecure food situation in the country had steered a campaign to grow more food. All available state and private land went under the harrow. The pristine lawns at Mt Lavinia nestled amongst those majestic buildings too were turned up to supplement the school boarding house. It was Warden Anandanayagam’s period, and the uncertainty in the country was reflected even in schools, unlike today where after-school activity was limited to a few sports the boys practiced on their own excepting for Cricket and Rugby that had masters in charge where non-boarders too participated.

All who came over from Gurutalawa did continue as boarders even at Mt Lavinia except the ones with homes in Colombo. Rajaram and I were in the Copleston senior dormitory with a few others, but it was we both that continued swimming as a competitive sport among them from Gurutalawa. The Public Schools Swimming Meet and the Inter-House Swimming Meets were coming up and we were in a hectic practice session after school in the college swimming pool under the direction of Manilal who was the Copleston House captain. Manilal, we knew from kindergarten at Bandarawela.

It was during a practice session one day in 1972 that Manilal said we are not practicing today in the pool, and he kept walking along the De Saram Road up to the Collage Avenue turn off passing the pool access. De Saram Road then, ran through the college unlike today. It separated the Junior school and the Big Club Grounds from the rest of the school.

We both just followed him partly through fear of leaving the school bounds but then were under the impression that he would have obtained permission from Mr Edirisinghe (EDO) the House Master to go out for practices just as we did go out on weekends then for a film show and lunch out.

We just followed him to the beach at the end of College Avenue and walked towards Dehiwala passing the Sri Lanka Life Saving and Surf Club, and were now standing in line with the famous reef outcrop about a quarter mile away in the sea. Manilal just said we are swimming out to the reef and back; we had no choice but to follow him. We dropped our towels on the beach and into the sea we went …. Rajaram and I got the taste of the Indian Ocean for the first time in our lives. To get past the breaking waves we imitated Manilal who swam the crawl style while we both were breaststrokers. 

Having swum about a mile and a half every day in the pool we had the confidence to swim along but it was the fear of the sea, the sharks below, and the drifting currents into the open sea, toxic floating jellies. What if we get drifted into the open sea? Nobody was informed of us going to the sea and if our towels would still be there on the beach when we came back was a concern in our minds.

After about twenty minutes of swimming, we were at the reef outcrop and Manilal was on it but we both had problems getting on. As instructed by Manilal waited for the wave to swell around the surf when we were lifted and there we were on the reef. Looking back at the shore we could see the patch where we left the towels but standing on the barnacles was not easy with our soles scraping giving extreme pain.

We dived back into the swelling wave for the return swim which was easier as the drift was towards land. However, once back closer to the beach we both had problems being first timers. You don’t see the wave breaking point when in the sea and only the experienced could judge the crest point and wait for the break and surf the wave towards shore.

Both Rajaram and I knew nothing of this, guess Manilal had taken for granted that we knew how to maneuver ourselves. We both went somersaulting with the wave breaking on us dashing into a sand cloud not knowing what happened and waited with closed eyes until we surfaced to take our bearings. We were lucky not to get drifted back to the sea but were now racing with the surf towards land. Two more waves were mastered while on our feet we were on the beach with piles of sand in our hairs and all other creases, folds, and vents. Manilal had a hearty laugh when we both said it was the first time we ever swam in the sea.

Now it was the walk back to college and Manilal took the lead as before and we just walked into the common boarding house showers and washed ourselves of sand and salts and back in as if nothing took place. Rajaram and I never discussed this until we met after leaving college but never did this again except for general sea baths at the Mt Lavinia Hotel beach.

To this day I don’t know why we did not fear leaving the premises for a sea swim. It could be that the two-mile sea swim was an annual event which many college boys took part, and it was normal that boys did practice in the sea then. Later I had my chance to stand for the two-mile sea swim as part of the University team but did not complete. General weekend sea bathing we continued with after many of us had quit the college boarding and joined Mrs Silva’s private hostel down De Soyza Avenue. However, sea bathing was a prohibited ground rule at her boarding, but beach walks were allowed. But even this sea bathing enthusiasm did come to end when one day we all lost our clothes to some beach urchins, and it was a time to get back indoors after much scouting to check on Mrs Silva’s whereabouts.