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A birthday with Madras memories
P. M. Joseph
Centenarians are rare in any part of the world. One of them, who celebrated her 100th birthday on April 10, is Alice (née Mathew) Joseph, whom many a physical education student in Bombay, Madras and Gwalior in the period 1938 to 1967 will rememb
er for having ‘mothered’ him or her in the hostel. During the period, her husband, P.M. Joseph, was the Principal of the sole Physical Education college in each of the three cities and she took it upon herself to supplement the hostel wardens’ efforts by ensuring hygiene, better healthcare and nutritious menus. And keeping open house for any student who wanted to discuss a personal problem. Indeed, wherever they were, she made her husband’s job of managing a college and making it a top-flight institution easier. And whichever institution P.M. Joseph headed, he made it a centre of excellence at a time when the phrase had not even been coined.
P.M. Joseph was the youngest of three illustrious brothers. The oldest was George Joseph of Madurai, a leading lawyer who was better known for his nationalist leanings and rapport with Gandhiji. Then came Pothan Joseph, the well-known journalist who edited more papers than the fingers of both hands. And there was P.M. Joseph.
While staying at the Madras YMCA, P.M. Joseph’s all-round sporting prowess brought him to the attention of the legendary Harry Buck who had founded the YMCA College of Physical Education, Asia’s first, in 1920. Buck persuaded him to give up his career as a leather technologist and join the College.
In those days, few Indians went to the U.S. to study. Fewer still got scholarships. Joseph was one of the few. He joined the world’s first physical education college, Springfield College, Massachusetts, Buck’s alma mater. Back in India in 1931, he joined the YMCA college, just in time to move with it from Royapettah to its Saidapet campus where it remains.
At Saidapet he made a mark that made him the obvious choice to set up another physical education college. In 1938, he was invited to set up and head the Government College of Physical Education in Bombay, its home, Kandivli, his choice. In 1947, the Madras college invited him to return and take over as Principal.
Two years later, the Government of India invited Joseph to help draft the National Plan for Physical Education. It was a plan that laid down for the first time the steps the Central Government should take to promote and support Physical Education in the country. One of its outcomes was the setting up of the Lakshmibai National College of Physical Education in Gwalior. And to head it, develop its campus, and create modern facilities, P.M. Joseph was the unanimous choice. When he retired from there in 1967, many thought he had established India’s Springfield.
To Joseph, physical education’s main concern was “not the production of champions but the all-round development of man.” And it was in line with this thinking that he long worked on a compendium of games of Indian origin that could successfully be introduced in the country’s villages because they did not require expensive equipment. On the other hand, he played a major role in introducing those Springfield games, basketball and volleyball, in many parts of the country. Swimming and boxing in India are two other sports that owe much to his promotion of them.
Joseph passed away in 1999, aged 95, in Chengannur, Kerala, to which he had retired. Alice Joseph celebrated her 100th birthday there.
S. MUTHIAH
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