Where we were

I grew up in Comilla in what was Bengal. Comilla is a city of lakes, and ponds. Nearly every house had a tank. A tank is like a rectangular swimming pool, and it has steps leading down to the water on all four sides. The lakes and tanks had fresh water bubbling in from underground streams. With so much water everywhere, I grew up to be a fierce swimmer. I was very young when I started swimming, maybe even as young as three years old. I would go hand-in-hand with my father and step into the water.

There were rivers nearby. The wide Padma, the Meghna, and the little Gomti.

When I was a teenager, my father accepted a teaching position at the University of Dhaka, so our family, my mother, sister and two brothers, all moved to the land-locked city of Dhaka. Dhaka had a fine university, and any lake in that town was man-made.