Deep Water

Question

Write a short letter to someone you know about your having learnt to do something new.

Solution

32, Conoor

Tamil Nadu,

November 4, 2009

Dear Payal,

You will be surprised to know that I have learnt swimming. Now I am preparing for representing my school in the inter-schoo] swimming competitions due next spring.

I very well remember the day I was very nervous when I entered the pool for the first time. For days, I had a great fear, a fear of water. Whenever, I had my face under water I was much frightened for long. I often felt some force pulling me down. But I always got encouragement from others swimming beside me.

I had to struggle a lot, practise swimming everyday for three months to get rid of the fear and feel free to swim. Now I know the joys of swimming, which can only be felt, not explained. I hope you are also learning something now-a-days.

Do write.

With Love

Yours truly,

Mohini.

Some More Questions From Deep Water Chapter

Why does Douglas as an adult recount a childhood experience of terror and his conquering of it? What larger meaning does he draw from this experience?

“All we have to fear is fear itself.” Have you ever had a fear that you have now overcome? Share your experience with your partner.

Find and narrate other stories about conquest fear and what people have said about courage. For example, you can recall Nelson Mandela’s courage and his struggle for freedom, his perseverance to achieve his mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor as depicted in his autobiography. The story “We’re Not Afraid To Die,” which you have read in class XI, is an apt example of how courage and optimism that helped the family service under the direst stress.

If some one else had narrated Douglas’s experience how would it have differed from this account. Write out a sample paragraph or paragraphs from this text from the point of view of a third person or observer, to find out. Which style of narration would you consider to be more effective? Why?

Doing well in any activity, for example a sport, music, dance or painting, riding a motorcycle or a car, involves a great deal of struggle. Most of us are very nervous to begin with until gradually we overcome our fears and perform well.
Write an essay of about five paragraphs recounting such an experience. Try to recollect minute details of what caused the fear, your feelings, the encouragement you got from others or the criticism.

You could begin with the last sentence of the essay you have just read – “At last I felt relased – free to walk the trails and climb the peaks and to brush aside fear.”

What created an aversion for water in William Douglas when he was three years old?
Or

Why did William Douglas develop an aversion to the water when he was three or four year old?

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