Khatri Sir and Gymnastics

(On the occasion of 50th Inter-IIT Sports Meet in IIT Bombay)

Khatri Sir and Gymnastics

I was extremely anxious. This return journey on Chaddar trek (walking on the frozen Zanskar River in Ladakh) had turned into a huge challenge. At one point on a long icy treacherous patch, despite all precautions, I finally had a spectacular Charlie Chaplin style fall. My legs slipped, for a fraction of a second I noticed that my entire body was 3-4 ft up in the air, and then I came crashing down. But within five minutes, I was back on my feet limping along in pain, cracking jokes and taking photos. At the camp that evening, one fellow trekker asked me, “How the hell do you manage this pain, man?” I told him, “There is simple one word answer: Khatri sir.”

Khatri sir…. 4 ft 10, stocky guy. Baldy, clean-shaven Gurkha face. Classic army person, rough and tough chain smoker, one who would not tolerate any jokes and would never smile. Almost always, he would wear a brown T-shirt and grey pants, as if these clothes were part of his stocky body itself. Yes, he was our Gymnastics coach. Apparently Gymnastics no longer features in Inter-IIT meets. But in the seventies and early eighties, Gymnastics accounted for seven gold medals and was a crucial event for winning the coveted overall sports trophy.

I was a freshie when I saw Khatri sir for the first time. I was wandering around the gymkhana, and heard someone screaming, “Thirty more seconds… Thirty.., Twenty nine...” Five pathetic souls were lying flat on their backs and were trying desperately to hold their legs at a 60 degree angle clenching their hands with quivering bodies. Khatri sir was also clenching…. his chappal in his hand, and was ready to hit anybody who failed to hold their position. I wondered, “What the hell is going on? What kind of suckers would want to endure this torture?” When gymnastics session ended, I happened to chat with Khatri sir. He told me in his crude Hindi, “One day, you will become a big sahib in your life. You will encounter lots of stress and pain. At that time, you will remember gymnastics and me. You will learn to enjoy pain” Wow! What a philosophy!

Guess what? The next day, people saw one new guy trying to hold his position clenching his hands and getting hit by Khatri sir’s chappal. A new sucker had joined Khatri’s team.

His methods of fixing our injuries and health problems were also crude, ruthless and consistent with his philosophy of training students to “Enjoy the life while in pain”. We were preparing for the Inter-IIT meet in Delhi in 1979 (I think!). Sudhir was a sure shot gold medal winner for the horizontal bar with his fancy grand circles. But ten days before the competition in the sports camp, he developed a huge blister on his palm. He was in pain and could not bear to perform grand circles any more. One fine morning, before anybody could realize, Khatri sir ignited some newspaper (with his cigarette lighter, of course) in his bare hands and pressed the burning wad hard into Sudhir’s palm. Holy cow!! Sudhir screamed, we were in shock, we could not believe our eyes. And Khatri sir in his calm voice said, “Everything will be fine.” Yes, the blister did open up, Sudhir was rushed to the hospi, they did dress up his wounds with bandages, and in the end, Sudhir actually ended up performing grand circles on horizontal bar while in freaking pain.

In another sports camp, many other coaches (Hockey, Football, Basketball etc.) had to go to the city for some conference. Early in the morning at 7 am, they handed over their boys to Khatri sir and said, “Khatri saab, can you please get the boys to do some warm-up? After that, they will go and practice their own games.” Neither the coaches nor their students were aware of what they were getting into. Khatri sir’s standard warm-up used to be so intense! 800 m sprint, tens of two-hand and one-hand push-ups (yes, one-hand push-ups are possible when Khatri sir is standing next to you with a chappal in his hand), hundred sit-ups, going up and down on MB (main building) staircases… all of these in just 45 min while Khatri sir is screaming at top of his voice. It was inevitable that after this “Khatri warm-up”, one could barely stand on his own legs. Obviously, instead of “practicing their own games”, all these teams staggered back to their own hostel rooms to rest.

So, that was Khatri sir… a terrorizing coach, and his blood-curdling, horrific incidences! Over time, however, one could start to understand another, more compassionate side of his character. We all were somewhat awkward, physically little too matured individuals for gymnastics, who had suddenly discovered our love for this sports, may be a dozen years too late. Even learning the simplest exercises was a struggle. But even as a 60 year old, Khatri sir provided firm physical and mental support to ensure that we are not injured during training. Imagine leaping backward during a back flip or a back somersault with a real danger of landing on your head or your neck with a potential body-crippling injury. But over time, we developed complete faith in Khatri sir to protect us, sometimes risking himself in the process. Even now in our fifties, when Suhas can still do a back flip, Sanjiv can do a press hand-stand, I can harden my tummy to withstand hard hitting punches from my teenage kids, or even when we reach our professional meetings on time, we remember Khatri sir!

Despite his tough demeanor, he definitely tolerated pranks by some of us, especially Milind. Occasionally, Milind would disappear in the middle of gymnastics session. Sometimes, we used to disappear with him as well. Some of our craziest surreal experiences in IIT happened along with Milind during such disappearances.

For example, how many IITans have experienced catching fish in overturned umbrellas? Or how many of you have actually caught, cooked and eaten multiple animals in one meal? During first monsoon showers, fish would start moving upstream from Powai lake through the drainage canals near Hostel 8. This canal flowed under the road through a culvert. Fish would have to leap up into the culvert just to continue their upstream journey. Under Milind’s leadership and innovation, many of those ambitious fish landed up in cleverly positioned overturned umbrellas and later on our dinner plates. How can this innovation be any less profound than Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle that we were learning in PH301 during the same summer? Incidentally, during that same summer, we caught, cooked and ate crabs and frogs as well! (But that is another profound and long story!!)

Well, unfortunately gone are those days! And gone is Khatri sir! Couple of years after our graduation, we heard that Khatri sir was sick with rapidly progressing throat cancer. We all went to meet Khatri sir at his home on the IIT campus. His eyes were weak. He had lost his voice, lost his fight. He could barely lift his hand. His forced smile filled us with sadness. His stocky body frame was gone, crude Hindi was gone, this constant fixture of Khatri sir in our lives was fading away. We were not used to seeing Khatri sir in this manner! He was trying to write on the nearby crumpled paper, “Stay well!” And we, a bunch of twenty year old kids, were facing teary emotions that we were not familiar with.

Sir, after thirty years, we are staying well, enjoying pains of our lives, occasionally remembering you, remembering those days…! As Milind says, “बंदर बुढ्ढा भी हो गया तो भी गुलाटी मारना नहीं भुलता।” (However old a monkey is, he doesn't forget his tricks!)

• Written by Nitin Anturkar (ChE’82) (July, 2014)
• Stories by Sudhir Bapat (ME’81), Milind Gokhale (CE’81), Nitin Anturkar (ChE’82), Makarand Karkare (MET’82), Sanjiv Kshirsagar (ME’83) and Ajay Prasad (ME’83)
• Reference: “The day I caught fish in IIT”, Makarand Karkare, Fundamatics, Q1, 2013