By C Madhumathy
My first impulse was to say no. “I am just happy swimming”, I told SB Aravind, the diving instructor at the swimming pool in Puducherry. Somehow, the other divers around convinced me to go along with them to mid-sea for the dive, but it was not before a lot of drama that I put on my regulator and finally took the dive. I was nervous and hated the salty water.
And then I started descending into the sea. My world changed in a few seconds, and so did my future.
It was serene and peaceful. I was mesmerized by what I saw, mind-blown by the entire experience. The water was soothing, holding me in tranquil balance as I descended further. There were colours I had not seen before in day light, textures I had spotted only in movies. The sting of a Jelly Fish, which would have otherwise scared the hell out of me, felt like a cute tickle.
Scuba diving is grabbing people’s attention quite a bit these days, but it was serendipity in my case which made it an eternal part of my life. My first reluctant dive was in 2011 and I was still in school.
In 2013, I quit college to take up scuba diving as a profession. But in those two years, it wasn’t just my feeling that the whole world conspired against my passion for the deep sea, it actually did.
I didn’t realize what impact the first dive had on me, but soon enough I was training for my diver certificate even as I attended school. After school, before I started attending college, I spent a lot of time diving at the Temple Adventures diving center, where the journey started for me. I used to hate get back to Chennai from Puducherry.
My thoughts were always with diving. I even dreamt about it. My passion for this sport completely overwhelmed me. That was when I decided I should go pro and teach people diving. But I never thought about quitting college. When I joined college, the Principal said I can go diving when I wanted to, provided I don’t go during exams. I agreed. There was one time when I had to do a diving-course for which I had waited long time. It wasn’t during examinations, but teachers didn’t want me to go because of a programme that Saturday for which attendance wasn’t even mandatory. I fought them and the Principal till the end. Tears were shed and finally they gave up and let me go.
I wondered why I should beg them when they don’t mean anything to me. I couldn’t concentrate on my academics anyway. All I could think about was Scuba Diving. It brought out the best in me. I just couldn’t stand the idea of not doing something I truly love and enjoy. It scared me. So finally one day, I upped and bid farewell to them. I quit college. We have one life to live and I value mine too much to not enjoy it. I told my family to let me do what I want and if this doesn’t work out, I’ll take the responsibility for it. After convincing everyone, my family said they’ll support me if I complete UG through correspondence. It was their only condition, and I agreed.
But being a girl in the small diving industry in India can be difficult. I was made fun of, even mistreated at times. It doesn’t matter where the girl is from. The only way she can gain respect is by working harder than men, showing more promise, knowledge and enthusiasm. She cannot take it easy, for she will simple be pushed adrift.
Diving is a male-dominated industry so men do show their arrogance, that’s just how it is.
I have dealt with such discrimination, but it wasn’t easy. I was only 18 years old at that time, the youngest in the dive centre and the only one from Chennai, and not in the usual diving centre in Puducherry. The jokes started and they started making fun of me and my mother. I put up with it for a while but one day I couldn’t take it anymore so I blasted them and left that place. But all the mockery filled my belly with fire. I just couldn’t give up on my passion. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, women are like tea-bags, you never know how strong they are until you get them in hot water. And I was in the water with my scuba diving equipment. Today I am a fully qualified instructor with a lot more experience than those who mocked me. And it happened because of the support of people like by instructor Aravind sir and other family members. I owe much of my success to my first instructor.
In 2014, I became an Emergency First Responder and a Rescue Diver. Later started doing Divemaster course, which is the first step in Professional diving. I successfully finished it and was thrilled to be certified. Being a Divemaster boosted my morale. In March 2015, I was off to the beautiful Rarotonga in Cook Islands for my Divemaster job. I was ecstatic. I lived there for three months and returned home as an Open Water Scuba Instructor and Specialty Instructor, the youngest in Tamil Nadu. I was proud of myself and so was my family. I had finally achieved a dream and now I am continuing my education to become a Master Scuba Diver Trainer.
I did not just learn Scuba diving in the past four years, I learned more about myself and life. I learned that I need to ignore what people say unless what they is useful or worth listening to. I learned to fight misogyny and chase my dreams. Of course taking such a path as this as a career is risky but it doesn’t matter when I see those beautiful arrays of fish, dolphins, massive turtles or eagle rays.
I go for a dive, I feel so relaxed. My mother always asks me to meditate and I tell her, I don't need to, I dive.
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