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because when I entered the university -- that was his last year, final M.A. -- I stayed in his room. So it became a joke because two champions... I was the university champion in debate, and he was a wrestler.
But everybody was worried about how we were managing because I was continually arguing and he knew only one argument: fighting. He was accepted by the university and passed all the examinations, but it was not that he was passing those examinations.... The university wanted him to remain in the university because he was the all-India champion. Champions are valuable; they raise the credit of your university.
He knew nothing of what the examinations were about. From the morning, he was doing hours of exercises; in the evening, more exercises -- and he was continuously wrestling with people, and his teacher. He was certainly a very good wrestler, I have seen him fighting. He finally became our sannyasin, but unfortunately he died very early. He was not more than fifty-five when he died.
He had come with me from the university and I asked my father, Today, we are both going swimming. He is also a swimmer as well as a wrestler. You have to come." He could not say no in front of his son-in-law -- that would have looked a little as if he was afraid. And the son-in-law could not say anything because the father-in-law was coming -- an old man. And I was very young and he was an all-India champion wrestler; so how could he expose that he was afraid?
When he saw the river he said, "Really, are we going to cross it?"
I said, "Of course."
My mother was trying to prevent us; my sister was trying to prevent her husband, but I was all for it. I said, "This chance will never come again; let us see what happens. At the most we'll be taken three, four miles downstream, we will just have to walk four miles up again." So when I jumped, they had to jump. And it was terrible -- the current was so strong that my brother-in-law said, "It would have been better if I had said that I was afraid before; now to go back is impossible. We are right in the middle, and I don't see any hope of reaching to the other side."
My father said, "I
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