In the last few months we've had a few ‘ambassadors' from American Basketball with hope in their hearts that they'd be successful in making the game a major sport in India. But in all the hoop-la about them is forgotten the fact that over 90 years ago another American, Harry Crowe Buck (about whom I've written before), had introduced the game to India and with some success spread it throughout the country. He had greater success with that other Springfield, Massachusetts— born sport, volleyball, but both games did sink roots in India, not a little due to Buck's protégés, who came out of Saidapet's YMCA College of Physical Education, which had its beginnings in George Town ninety years ago this year. The most successful of Buck's protégés was P.M. Joseph, brother of renowned journalist Pothan Joseph and Congress advocate George Joseph.
It was while working as a chemist contributing to the leather trade and staying at the YMCA in George Town that P.M. Joseph's daily sports activities came to Buck's attention. Joining what was then the Y's Training School of Physical Education became virtually inevitable, given Buck's persuasive powers and Joseph's passion for physical activity. When he passed out, Buck had Principal B.S. Stoffer of the American Mission College, Madura, hire Joseph. And with Stoffer having played good college basketball, Joseph received every encouragement to spread the gospel of basketball in Madurai and the southern districts.
A scholarship to Buck's alma mater, Springfield College, followed and Joseph graduated with the Class of 1931. Thirty-four years later he was to return to receive a doctorate honoris causa . He shared the platform that day with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., fellow-recipient of a Springfield doctorate. But what Joseph remembered best about his Springfield years was meeting by chance Dr. James A. Naismith, the inventor of basketball, and hearing about how he invented the game.
Naismith had been Springfield's football coach and he needed a way to keep his footballers in condition during winter. They showed little interest in indoor track. They were, however, interested in competition. “But space was limited,” Joseph years later recalled Naismith telling him. “Thrust and power were important in games like football, and the gymnasium floor was too small. So, instead of a goal on the ground-level as in hockey and football, where successful shooting involved force, he worked on the concept of agility and accuracy. The ball was to be put into a peach basket which was fixed ten feet high on the protecting rail of the indoor running track. To prevent rough play, he introduced the idea of ‘no body contact'. Every time a goal was scored by basketing the ball, someone had to climb a ladder and take the ball out. Then Dr. Naismith decided to knock off the bottom of the peach basket, so that the ball could fall down after the goal was scored. And so basketball was born.” A peach of an idea, as a wit said.
Back in India, Joseph joined Buck at the College, which had by then sunk roots in Saidapet. In 1938 he moved on to become the first Principal of Bombay's new Government College of Physical Education.
Then, in 1947, he returned to Saidapet as Principal. It was during this period that he helped draft the National Plan for Physical Education, laying the foundation for the successes we are only now seeing. Part of the plan was to establish a school of excellence — and in 1949 the Lakshmibai National College of Physical Education opened its doors in Gwalior with Joseph as its first principal. He retired from there in 1967.
But between Madras, Bombay and Gwalior, Joseph had successfully graduated thousands of Physical Education trainers who were to make a difference in Indian sport “from Kashmir to Kanniyakumari”, as one tribute had it.
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The python and the elephant
Photographer S. Anwar, with whom I team quite often, called on me the other day to show me the results of a ‘shoot' he had done at the Big Temple in Thanjavur shortly before the recent celebrations. There was one picture in particular he wanted me to look at. It was of a massive dvarapala in the Rajaraja Tiruvaasal. All of six metres in height and hewn from a single stone, it had us wondering how such a huge block had been transported to the site from a stone quarry that must have been about 50km away.
That oft-asked question about the huge stone blocks for the temple and how they were transported, raised and wedded together to build the temple was not, however, what Anwar wanted to discuss when he showed me his picture. Look at the picture closely, he urged me. And I did, but could not find anything out of the ordinary till he pointed out a small bas relief, tiny in proportion to the dominant figure, beneath the raised right foot of the gatekeeper. And, lo and behold, it was of a python (head only) swallowing an elephant! Now what is the significance of that, Anwar asked. And I didn't have the faintest idea. I wonder whether R. Nagaswamy or Chitra Madhavan or someone else has an answer.
What the python was doing to its prey was itself intriguing. A python, according to B. Vijayaraghavan of the Chennai Snake Park Trust, kills by asphyxiation caused by tightening its coils around its victim's body every time the latter breathes out. But the python in question was not indulging in this. Pythons can also give a victim a rather nasty bite, Vijayaraghavan says, but the depiction in the Big Temple is something rather more than a bite. So, what's this bas relief all about?
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They too contributed
As I expected, there was much to keep the postman busy after my piece on Madras Christian College's contribution to Tamil last week. Many mentioned the name of A. Madhavaiah, Theodore Baskaran referred to S. Satyamurti, and V.T. Theetharappan drew my attention to Vellakal Pa. Subramania Mudaliar. The authors in their MCC history have focused on Madhavaiah as a social reformer who had been greatly influence by William Miller. Satyamurti they saw as an eminent public figure. Subramania Mudaliar they missed out on.
Madhavaiah (the father of M. Ananthanarayanan, the novelist, and M. Krishnan, the famous wildlife photographer, naturalist and writer) was a prolific writer in Tamil, but is best remembered for his pioneering novel, Padmvathi Charitham . His Clorinda, another well-known work, has found mention in this column in the past. Madhaviah, like Satyamurti, taught at the College for a short while. Little remembered, however, is Madhaviah's campaign to make Tamil the medium of instruction. On October 22, 1925, he made an impassioned plea for this conviction of his at a meeting of the Senate of the University of Madras, sat down and passed away in his seat.
Of Satyamurti, Baskaran says, “His contribution to Tamil song, drama and cinema is still to be recognised.” To this might be added oratory.
Like the other two, Subramania Mudaliar too has figured in these columns. Like Madhavaiah and Satyamurti, he made his mark in two fields, but more divergent than the others. His primary field was Veterinary Science, but he became more widely known for his translation of the Kambaramayana and Milton's Paradise Lost . Several were the discussions he had with Principal Miller on Kambar and Milton while in College. Out of those debates came Mudaliar's commitment to translation, Dr. G.U. Pope describing his Tamil translations as “remarkably good.” Another who linked the College and Kambar was T.K.C. Chidambaranathar Mudaliar.
