1:Physical Education Course: One of the best years in my life

Baba

Interviewee: SSA (Baba), Interviewer: Rohini, Via: Phone, Date: 4/15/11

After explaining the purpose of my phone call Baba expressed his happiness over the project and gave me many suggestions to make the project a success. I noted down the ideas he put forth and then we began the interview.

Age: 82 yrs

Birth Place: Ganapati Pule, Maharashtra, India

Background information: Baba had six brothers and a sister. Three brothers and a sister are no more.

He did his schooling in Girgaon and moved to Pune to live with his maternal uncle for college. He retired as a school teacher.

Rohini: If you were to think back can you tell me what was the happiest period of your life? Was it your school years or was it your college days? Was it when you were working…..?

Baba: When I did my Physical Education teacher training, I had the most fun. May be I will just tell you about that. That year was the best year of my life. I was 31 years old. I had only one son then he was very little. The school where I used to teach needed someone who was trained in Physical Education.

I volunteered. The school paid for all my expenses. I went to Kandiwali for the year long course. I had 60 other students with me. I was one of the oldest in class. Others were young and had a lot more energy than I did. We all used to live in a hostel. Eat at restaurants and work very hard during the day. I learned all about different games and physical fitness. We had to play sports, learn rules and exercise quite a lot. But I had determination to complete this because the school needed a trained member on their staff. Looking back, I am very proud of myself for doing that. The funny thing is that two years prior to this I had applied for the same course but when I returned after applying I fell sick with Typhoid and was down for over a month. My mother had come to live with us then to help out. But this time all went well. My expenses were also covered by the school. As a result of this one year I became physically much stronger than before. I can tell you many more memories but this by far was the best year, most memorable for me….

“So are we done?” he asked a little hastily.

I believe there was a flood of good memories and Baba wanted to ride the waves like an expert surfer. So I promised to call again soon and left him to enjoy his surfing…