India, Sept. 26 -- Ask anyone about the teacher who changed things for them and you will hear about a maths teacher, or an English teacher, or the one who stayed back after school. Almost nobody names the person who took the games period.

The coaches now working with FanToPark Play across Delhi-NCR came out of that job. They trained at physical education institutions, took school posts, and spent years running the one period in the timetable that no child is graded on.

"Some months the games period just stopped appearing on the timetable. Nobody told me it was cancelled, it simply wasn't there. Those weeks I was given invigilation duty or office work instead," said Ajay Sharma, who taught physical education at a school before joining Fa...