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That was a long digression into politics.
Let me return, hopefully, to Physical Education, starting from how it was in our school in the early 1950s in our seaside Village, Muthukur.
The school and I grew up together. As I progressed from one Form (Class) to the next, our school was adding the next Form. We 'got in on the ground floor' as the Yankees say.
The name of our school was: S.I.I.B.H.School. I say, 'was' because the Government needlessly tampered with its name and it now is: S.I.I.Z.P.School...a rose by another name.
As I said earlier, our British Rulers of the Madras Presidency didn't deem it necessary to have a high school in our Village...a Police Station with a rummy lock-up and a Court to try the thief (or the patriot) was enough for them.
As India gained Freedom, its first fruit for us was our school. But the nascent Govt was bankrupt (courtesy the British) and asked the villagers to come up with donations to kick-start one. And then there was this Idooru Ishwaramma, a childless widow, who offered the lioness's share of the needed money if and only if her name (not her dead and gone hubby's) was into the school's name...forever. That is how we got it as Srimati Idooru Ishwaramma Board High School...S.I.I.B.H.School.
This Ishwaramma was a tough nut. One evening, when I was about 8, I saw my HM Father get unusually dressed up to go out. And I begged him to take me along. And he agreed, saying he was going to the house of Ishwaramma. And I was excited. She turned out to be a simple old lady living alone in a modest house. And I could gather from their talk that my Father was urging her to enhance her donation a bit to enable the construction of one more 'shed' for the upcoming higher Form....in vain as it turned out. So, we had 'shift system'...a pretty complicated affair...till the Government gave the needed 'grants' a year later.
Unfortunately I don't have a file photo of the class rooms of my school, but here is the closest approximation, except that the roof was made of hay and bamboo and thatch and palm leaves and ropes, and coconut trunks as beams:
http://passportswithpurpose.org/page/5/?p=myimqnkqexuzk
The sheds were at the grave risk of fire in summer (it happened once, luckily during vacations) but the structure had so much sunshine and ventilation that we enjoyed it thoroughly...not gloomy like F-127 at IIT KGP when the power went phut. The floor was sandy and it added to the comfort...fist-fights and brawls didn't result in fractures.
As in the picture above, the school stood alone amidst shrub-greenery the whole of which served as our playground...no borders nor fences.
At its zenith the school ran 6 Forms...Ist Form (Class VI) to S.S.L.C. (Class XI). No Class had more than 30 students and so no split-sections. All the students of he school were divided into 5 Squads (not Houses)...Dharmaraja, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva (religion took precedence over patriotism...unlike at IIT KGP where the Halls started with secular names of eminent Men and Women of India...Nehru, Patel, Azad et al...unless you deem Mother Teresa insecular).
The twenty odd girl-students of the school formed a squad of their own...I don't recall the name of their squad, but certainly not Draupadi.
Each Squad has an appointed Captain. And, as soon as a new batch joins the lowest Class, the thirty odd lambs were asked to squat on the playground in a group. And the five Captains would toss among themselves for priority in serially picking the goats for their squads. Much homework would have been done before the selection, making inquiries as to 'who is who?' in sports and games and athletics.
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That was a long digression into politics.
Let me return, hopefully, to Physical Education, starting from how it was in our school in the early 1950s in our seaside Village, Muthukur.
The school and I grew up together. As I progressed from one Form (Class) to the next, our school was adding the next Form. We 'got in on the ground floor' as the Yankees say.
The name of our school was: S.I.I.B.H.School. I say, 'was' because the Government needlessly tampered with its name and it now is: S.I.I.Z.P.School...a rose by another name.
As I said earlier, our British Rulers of the Madras Presidency didn't deem it necessary to have a high school in our Village...a Police Station with a rummy lock-up and a Court to try the thief (or the patriot) was enough for them.
As India gained Freedom, its first fruit for us was our school. But the nascent Govt was bankrupt (courtesy the British) and asked the villagers to come up with donations to kick-start one. And then there was this Idooru Ishwaramma, a childless widow, who offered the lioness's share of the needed money if and only if her name (not her dead and gone hubby's) was into the school's name...forever. That is how we got it as Srimati Idooru Ishwaramma Board High School...S.I.I.B.H.School.
This Ishwaramma was a tough nut. One evening, when I was about 8, I saw my HM Father get unusually dressed up to go out. And I begged him to take me along. And he agreed, saying he was going to the house of Ishwaramma. And I was excited. She turned out to be a simple old lady living alone in a modest house. And I could gather from their talk that my Father was urging her to enhance her donation a bit to enable the construction of one more 'shed' for the upcoming higher Form....in vain as it turned out. So, we had 'shift system'...a pretty complicated affair...till the Government gave the needed 'grants' a year later.
Unfortunately I don't have a file photo of the class rooms of my school, but here is the closest approximation, except that the roof was made of hay and bamboo and thatch and palm leaves and ropes, and coconut trunks as beams:
http://passportswithpurpose.org/page/5/?p=myimqnkqexuzk
The sheds were at the grave risk of fire in summer (it happened once, luckily during vacations) but the structure had so much sunshine and ventilation that we enjoyed it thoroughly...not gloomy like F-127 at IIT KGP when the power went phut. The floor was sandy and it added to the comfort...fist-fights and brawls didn't result in fractures.
As in the picture above, the school stood alone amidst shrub-greenery the whole of which served as our playground...no borders nor fences.
At its zenith the school ran 6 Forms...Ist Form (Class VI) to S.S.L.C. (Class XI). No Class had more than 30 students and so no split-sections. All the students of he school were divided into 5 Squads (not Houses)...Dharmaraja, Bhima, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva (religion took precedence over patriotism...unlike at IIT KGP where the Halls started with secular names of eminent Men and Women of India...Nehru, Patel, Azad et al...unless you deem Mother Teresa insecular).
The twenty odd girl-students of the school formed a squad of their own...I don't recall the name of their squad, but certainly not Draupadi.
Each Squad has an appointed Captain. And, as soon as a new batch joins the lowest Class, the thirty odd lambs were asked to squat on the playground in a group. And the five Captains would toss among themselves for priority in serially picking the goats for their squads. Much homework would have been done before the selection, making inquiries as to 'who is who?' in sports and games and athletics.
And once you get chosen, as I was in the Arjun Squad, you stay in that squad for the next six years. As you can easily imagine, this bred a lot of (un)healthy rivalry between the squads much like the Hall Tempo at IIT KGP, where there was this infamous incident when around 120 students belonging to two different Halls came to blows with hands and brickbats to 'secure' a tree for hanging their Hallmates' Election Ads. All of them were 'disciplined' with hefty fines, threats of losing their medals and awards, and were forced to do 'social work' like Library Duty.
More tomorrow...
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