Nolini’s Coach
Sri Chinmoy coached Nolini Kanta Gupta in athletics at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Nolini was a literary giant, second only to Sri Aurobindo in the Ashram, and for him to ask the young Chinmoy for athletic coaching was a great honour. In support of the Mother’s encouragement of sports in the Ashram, Nolini continued to engage in competitive sports into his seventies.Nolini was a very good student, a very good student! At four-thirty or five o’clock I used to go to coach him. He would warm up, and then I would put out the starting block. I would always coach him about what to do: where to put his fingers, how to stand. He would run 100 metres, or on some days 200 metres. Then he would do the shot put. Immediately I would run and pick up the shot. Then he used to practise the long jump. It was only he and I together – nobody else. Others were doing other things at that hour. He became happier than the happiest!
I became so happy when Nolini stamped on the board properly in the long jump. At other times he lost distance or crossed over the board. I prayed and prayed on the day of the competition. On that day, the Mother was with him: he did three jumps, there was absolutely no foul, and he did not lose any distance. He stamped on the board properly.
With tremendous respect and admiration I coached Nolini, and he always listened to me. He said something about my coaching. In his article about me, he used two words affectionately: “foolhardiness” and “enthusiasm.” 25
3 June 2002, Sri Chinmoy Centre
Perhaps Nolini felt that even with the young Chinmoy’s encouragement and enthusiasm, Nolini would never be, at his age, an athlete of extraordinary skill or fitness.↩
