ON December 2, the founding day of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre for Education, in Pondicherry, the Department of Physical Education held a massive parade and demonstration of not just students, but members of all age groups.
The colourful and spirited event which began with a march past taking salute to a chair kept where The Mother, a tennis player who was the brain behind the department used to watch the parade, a prayer to The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, the guiding force behind the Ashram and the school which was incorporated as a physical exercise with chants by the younger children, mass drill exercises, rope Malkhamb demonstrations with the participants performing Yogasanas on the rope, feats of strength, a show where a boy lay down on a bed of nails and had motorbikes with pillion riders passing over a board placed on his stomach.
Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya, the Director of the Physical Education Department since its inception in 1945, still continues to direct the planning of this annual event says that the ideal of physical education that the Mother and Sri Aurobindo had was a unique one. It was their view that health, physical fitness and character building were the immediate basic aims. Then came the awakening of the body consciousness, which ultimately leads to a physical transformation. The school invited highly qualified teachers from India and abroad to conduct training courses for the teachers in theory and practice and in various branches of physical activities.
The participating members of the Department are of two types. The students who study there and the Sadhaks of the Ashram who take up physical education as part of their Sadhana. They are provided with sufficient opportunities regarding the programme, organisation, facilities, fields and equipment, instructions and general guidance.
Beginning with 14 Ashram boys as students, in May 1945 with rudimentary facilities, the playground now has two fully equipped gymnasiums, a rhythmic hall, two covered terraces and two open terraces for warming up and group activities, projector room, cine-service and recording section with their equipment, a children’s courtyard, table tennis tables and office. The tennis ground has facilities for tennis, basket ball, boxing, wrestling, lathi play, children’s activities and sea bathing. There is also a dojo and volleyball ground. There is also the sports ground with facilities for track and field events and the swimming pool with glazed tile surfacing.
In a note on the role of physical education in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Pranab Da, as the Director is fondly called, says spirituality took a new turn with the evolution of a new order of a dynamic spiritual life. The body he says, is the base or pedestal of our terrestrial existence. The longer the body can be made to live by maintaining its health, strength and active energies, the more the gain for the sadhana. A sound course in physical education is very important to preserve the body for long, in health, strength and active fitness. “The perfection of the body, as great a perfection we can bring about by the means at our disposal, must be the ultimate aim of physical culture,” he quotes Sri Aurobindo and The Mother who said, “The basic programme will be to build a body, beautiful in form, harmonious in posture, supple and agile in its movements, powerful in its activities and resistant in its health and organic functions.”
About 1,300 members of the Ashram – men, women and children of various ages, from children of six to the oldest – take part in the physical education demonstrations. Pranab Da himself has got a small gym in his room with a treadmill and weights of different kinds. The secret to a happy life he says is, “Good food, good exercise, plenty of rest and peace of mind.”
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