Sound mind in a sound body is now almost a catch-phrase. Games and sports- – formally termed ‘extra-curricular’ – are today considered as co-curricular activity; the switch-over (=change) promotes these activities bringing them at par with learning and education.
Our age and our destiny is today at the crossroads. In the older dispensation (=older order) the traditional schools of whatever rank or dimension had a playground. Although regarded as an extra-curricular activity every student enjoyed the games and sports. But things have perceptibly changed. Today schools have multiplied and are multiplying at abnormal speed. The CBSE or the ICSE have set parameters that must be complied with for affiliation. But it is a feature of the schools today, which is too common for oversight, that a large majority of them circumvent (=bypass) the set norms and yet thrive full and flowing. How they manage it is beyond the pale of this essay. Private homes are converted into schools during daytime, as some sections of the apartments serve as classrooms. At sunset their furniture-folded and clapped – are shoved into a dump to rest for the night. Some buildings serve their turn as schools in day and prayer rooms after sunset. Any considerable open space is walled in, compartmentalized as tier on tier the building rises to provide for increasing classes.
The above picture renders the dismal culture of starting school today. Can anybody dream of games and sports in them? While this latter has, perhaps, never been so crying a need in the schools as now. Today the children and the like apartments in young grow cage- what with 3-roomed or 4-roomed! Theirs is a shuttered sensibility; they spend their school-hours huddled in the classrooms and back home are busy with TVs or other indoor entertainments. The home too- computer classes some have the sets at strap them to their seats. The surveys conducted by philanthropic (=good intentioned) bodies often speak of ailments; affluent guardians provide artificial gym derives.
The entire system looks like the proverbial cart being put before the horse. We neglect what should come first- that is the child’s health, and want to retrieve (=regain) it by going round the back door. Doesn’t it look like the dog running after its tail! What an improvised open space for badminton or table tennis with a sprouting auditorium; what domestic gym with open gymnasiums and what such piddling (=trifling) devices with maidans or open stretching fields!
One may generally fear that this kind of colony lives might breed in future nincompoops (=stupid duliards). The succeeding generations would lose their impetus towards games and sport and lo! What would follow? Loss of guts, friendliness or comaraderie, physical health. The mind, starved of physical vitality, shall wither. The very urge to live and let live – a spirit basically sportive and Spartan-shall disappear from our life.
So, the games and sports must be not only made compulsory in schools. On the contrary provisions must be made also for implementing this clause.
