Class 12 English Flamingo Chapter 3 — Deep Water by William O. Douglas (ASSEB)
Welcome to HSLC Guru, your dependable companion for ASSEB (Assam State Board, Higher Secondary Second Year / Class 12) English textbook solutions. This page contains a complete, exam-oriented study package for “Deep Water”, the third prose lesson of the NCERT Flamingo textbook prescribed by ASSEB. The chapter is an autobiographical extract from Of Men and Mountains by William O. Douglas, the longest-serving Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1939–1975). In it, the author records how a near-drowning at a Y.M.C.A. pool when he was about ten or eleven left him with a paralysing fear of water — a fear he later overcame, with the help of a professional instructor, through methodical training and sheer willpower. The piece is closely linked with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s celebrated line, “All we have to fear is fear itself.”
The notes below cover the About the Author note, a detailed English Summary, an Assamese সাৰাংশ, all NCERT textual exercises (Understanding the Text, Talking about the Text, Working with Words, Things to Do), additional short and long answer questions, 20+ MCQs, extract-based questions, and a clear discussion of the themes — overcoming fear, determination, and the Rooseveltian message at the heart of the lesson. Read carefully, revise often, and answer in your own words during your ASSEB Higher Secondary examination.
About the Author
William Orville Douglas (1898–1980) was an American jurist and writer who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court for over thirty-six years — the longest tenure in the Court’s history. He was a noted environmentalist and a passionate advocate of individual liberty and civil rights. Apart from his legal writings, Douglas wrote several books on his love of mountains, rivers and the outdoors, including Of Men and Mountains (1950), from which the present extract “Deep Water” has been taken. The autobiographical narrative shows how, as a child, he developed an intense aversion to water and how, as a young man, he conquered it through systematic training. The piece is admired both as a piece of personal writing and as a lesson in psychological courage.
Summary (English)
“Deep Water” is an autobiographical piece in which William O. Douglas tells of his lifelong fear of water, how it began, how it almost killed him, and how he finally conquered it. His aversion to water dated back to when he was three or four years old. His father had taken him to a beach in California, where the breakers knocked him down and swept over him. Buried under a mountain of water, he was breathless and terrified; though his father laughed, the experience left a permanent fear of water in the child’s heart.
Years later, when Douglas was about ten or eleven, he decided to learn to swim. The Yakima River was considered too treacherous, so he chose the Y.M.C.A. pool at Yakima, which was safer — only two or three feet deep at the shallow end and nine feet at the deep end. He bought a pair of water-wings and went there to learn. But almost as soon as he had begun, an unfortunate incident occurred. One day, while he was sitting alone on the side of the pool, a big, muscular boy of about eighteen, looking like a Tarzan, came up and, “as a joke”, picked him up and tossed him into the deep end of the pool.
Douglas hit the water in a sitting position. He swallowed water and went straight to the bottom. He was frightened but not yet out of his wits. On the way down he planned that, when his feet hit the bottom, he would make a big jump, come to the surface like a cork, lie flat on the water, and paddle to the edge. The nine feet seemed more like ninety. His lungs were ready to burst. When his feet finally touched the tiles he jumped with all his strength, but the upward movement was slow and he came up only slightly. He tried to grab a rope, to scream, to thrash about, but everything failed. He went down a second time, swallowing more water, his legs paralysed, his lungs aching, his heart pounding. He summoned his will and made another effort, but he came up still more feebly. He went down a third time. Now sheer, stark terror took hold of him; his body was paralysed and rigid; only the movement of his heart told him he was still alive. Then the terror left him. He was moving in oblivion. There was no fear, no panic — peace and quietness. The “curtain of life fell”. He had crossed to oblivion, and the world was lost.
The next thing he knew, he was lying on his stomach beside the pool, vomiting. Someone — the boy who had thrown him in, or someone else — had pulled him out. Douglas was taken home, shaken and weak, and he stayed in bed for days. The misadventure had revived all the old fear of water. For years afterwards, this haunting fear followed him wherever he went — to the Maine lakes, the New Hampshire lakes, Deschutes, Columbia, Bumping Lake, Warm Lake, the Tieton, and others. It spoiled his fishing, canoeing, boating and swimming, robbing him of all the joy he might have had on or near the water.
Douglas was determined to defeat this fear. As an adult he engaged a swimming instructor at a pool to teach him, piece by piece. The instructor first put a belt around him with a rope attached, the rope running through a pulley over an overhead cable. He held the rope and Douglas went back and forth across the pool, hour after hour, day after day, week after week. With each crossing the panic decreased a little. Then the instructor taught him to put his face under water and exhale, and to raise his nose and inhale. Douglas repeated this hundreds of times. Slowly the tension faded. Next he taught him to kick with his legs: for weeks Douglas held on to the side of the pool and kicked until his legs lost their stiffness. Finally, the instructor combined all the parts — exhaling, inhaling, kicking, arm strokes — into a single coordinated stroke. After about three months he could swim. But the instructor told him he was not done; bits of fright still clung to him, and Douglas had to hunt them down and kill them, one by one.
To finish the job, Douglas tested himself in real water. He swam two miles across Lake Wentworth in New Hampshire, swimming the crawl, the breast stroke, the side stroke and the back stroke. Only once did the old terror return, in the middle of the lake, but he laughed at it: “Well, Mr Terror, what do you think you can do to me?” The fear shrank away and he swam on. To finish the job he then swam the length of the Warm Lake, from one shore to the other, and in the experience he at last knew that he had conquered his fear of water. From this experience he drew a larger meaning. He had had a near-death experience and discovered the truth of Roosevelt’s words — that “all we have to fear is fear itself.” Having known both the sensation of dying and the terror that fear of it produces, his will to live had grown enormously.
সাৰাংশ (Assamese Summary)
“ডীপ ৱাটাৰ” উইলিয়াম অ’. ডগলাছৰ আত্মজীৱনীমূলক ৰচনা। এই ৰচনাত লেখকে নিজৰ পানীৰ প্ৰতি জীৱনব্যাপী ভয় কিদৰে আৰম্ভ হৈছিল, কেনেদৰে এই ভয়ে তেওঁক প্ৰায় মৃত্যুমুখলৈ ঠেলি দিছিল আৰু কেনেকৈ তেওঁ সেই ভয়ক জয় কৰিলে — সেই বিষয়ে বৰ্ণনা কৰিছে।
ডগলাছৰ পানীৰ প্ৰতি ভয় তিনি-চাৰি বছৰ বয়সৰে পৰাই আৰম্ভ হৈছিল। সেই সময়ত তেওঁৰ পিতৃৰ লগত কেলিফৰ্নিয়াৰ সাগৰ-বেলিলৈ গৈ থাকোঁতে এটা ডাঙৰ ঢৌৱে তেওঁক পেলাই দি পানীৰ তলত পুতি পেলাইছিল। সেই অভিজ্ঞতাই শিশুটিৰ মনত পানীৰ প্ৰতি স্থায়ী আতংকৰ সৃষ্টি কৰিছিল। প্ৰায় দহ-এঘাৰ বছৰ বয়সত তেওঁ সাঁতোৰ শিকিবলৈ য়াকিমা চহৰৰ ৱাই.এম.চি.এ. পুখুৰীলৈ গ’ল, কাৰণ য়াকিমা নৈ অতি বিপজ্জনক বুলি গণ্য হৈছিল। তাত যাৱতীয় কথা ঠিক চলি থকা সময়তে এজন প্ৰায় ওঠৰ বছৰীয়া বলৱান ল’ৰাই কৌতুক কৰি ডগলাছক পুখুৰীৰ গভীৰ ফালে দলিয়াই দিলে।
পানীত পৰি তেওঁ পুখুৰীৰ তললৈ গ’ল। প্ৰথমবাৰ ওপৰলৈ উঠিবলৈ চেষ্টা কৰিলে যদিও সফল নহ’ল; দ্বিতীয়বাৰ আৰু চেষ্টা কৰিলে কিন্তু আকৌ ডুব গ’ল। তৃতীয়বাৰ ডুব মৰাৰ পিছত তেওঁৰ শৰীৰ সাৰ-শক্তিহীন হৈ পৰিল আৰু চেতনা হেৰাল। কোনোবা এজনে তেওঁক উদ্ধাৰ কৰি পুখুৰীৰ পাৰলৈ আনিলে। সেই দুৰ্ঘটনাই তেওঁৰ মনত পানীৰ প্ৰতি গভীৰ ভয় বহুবছৰ ধৰি ৰাখিলে। মেইন, নিউ হেম্পশ্বাৰ, ডেচ্যুটচ, বাম্পিং হ্ৰদ আদিত গৈও মাছ ধৰা, নাও বোৱা বা সাঁতৰ মাৰাৰ আনন্দ পাবলৈ অসমৰ্থ আছিল।
অৱশেষত পৰিণত বয়সত তেওঁ এই ভয়ক জয় কৰিবলৈ মনস্থ কৰিলে। তেওঁ এজন দক্ষ শিক্ষক নিযুক্ত কৰিলে, যিজনে সাঁতোৰ-শিক্ষাক বহু সৰু সৰু পদক্ষেপত ভাগ কৰি, ৰছী আৰু পুলিৰ সহায়ত মাহৰ পিছত মাহ অনুশীলন কৰাই অৱশেষত ডগলাছক সাঁতোৰিব শিকালে। কিন্তু শিক্ষকে ক’লে যে সম্পূৰ্ণ ভয় এতিয়াও যোৱা নাই। সেয়ে ডগলাছ নিউ হেম্পশ্বাৰৰ ৱেণ্টৱৰ্থ হ্ৰদ আৰু পিছত ৱাৰ্ম হ্ৰদলৈ গৈ নিজে নিজকে পৰীক্ষা কৰিলে আৰু শেষত সম্পূৰ্ণৰূপে পানীৰ ভয় জয় কৰিলে।