I have always been big. Though it’s been a few years now when people stopped using the word big and substituted it for the more honest fat. But inspite of my size I have always been comfortable in water and even under it. I was a top class swimmer and regularly used to impress friends with my ability to swim underwater for long periods of time. Big lungs you see.

And then I grew up and started to work. Writing copy for advertising is a demanding job and especially when you are at the bottom of the ladder you can’t even think of asking for Sundays off to go to the club for a swim. So I had to console myself with telling swimming tales to my land lubber colleagues. Little did I realise that my big mouth would soon land me in deep waters.

It all began when my art director friend who was a Maharashtrian who had always lived on land called me and asked me to keep myself free on the coming Sunday. We were working on Calendar ideas for a client and he had some idea that he wanted to experiment with. I readily agreed especially when he announced that he had gotten special permission from the boss to use the office car that day and that I was to drive.

Come Sunday I went to the boss’ house, picked up the car, then fetched my friend and having tanked up with chips and soft drinks and water I asked him ‘where to’. I was told to drive to T-Nagar. I did. And after a while actually reached the street that was specified. When we reached the building indicated, my friend got down, told me to reverse the car and be in readiness to leave. When he returned he had in tow a tall, well built young lady who was also quite good looking.

The two of them got into the car and I was told to head out of Madras towards the Andhra Pradesh border. Baffled but too confused to ask why I drove as instructed and soon announced that we were now about 70 kms out of Madras. I was directed to drive straight for a few more kilometres and then told to turn left and follow the signs to a waterfall.

That is when I was explained the concept that my friend had in mind. It was shamelessly inspired by Raj Kapoor’s Satyam, Shivam Sundaram and envisaged a white chiffon sari (and nothing else) clad nubile beauty who could walk on water with a gushing waterfall in the background. I saw the waterfall, I saw the nubile beauty but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how my friend could achieve the walking on water effect.

The evil glint in my friend’s eyes gave me an indication as to why I was part of the team. Before I could articulate any kind of protest my friend rigged up a cloth barricade between four trees and got the young lady to first strip then wrap around herself a white chiffon sari. I was then given the use of the changing room and asked to strip down to my shorts. Then the task began in real earnest.

First the girl would enter the water and wet herself completely so she had a cling wrap of a sari and then I would enter the water till I was in neck deep, and then she would step onto my shoulders and I would duck my head underwater and carrying her thus, would walk towards the centre of the pool. The girl had no sense of balance, she kept falling off my shoulders and she didn’t know how to wade leave alone swim.

So I’d take her on my shoulders, take a couple of steps to position, duck my head when ready and she would act as if she was walking on water. The sari having been drenched a few times when she fell off my shoulders was wet enough to show the desired ‘effect’ and the place was windy enough to get her hair dry and blowing in minutes. My friend got his pictures and I had a sore shoulder.

We shot till there was enough light and then drove back to Madras. The girl and I were exhausted and my friend was ecstatic.

When we dropped off the girl to her house she was sweet enough to thank me for the use of my shoulders and gave me a hug while saying ‘Thank you, My Water Baby’.

I was too tired even to blush.