The pro wrestler returns to India for a month-long vacation, and his fans just can’t get enough of him, writes Rama Lakshmi in The Washington Post
After two hours of swaying to thumping Bollywood neo-folk music and listening to stock stage jokes, the fans grew impatient and began chanting for the star of the evening to show up. “We want Khali! We want Khali!”
And when the Goliath-size professional wrestler of that name appeared on stage in a blue cotton shirt, jeans and ponytail, thousands of hands thrust cellphone cameras into the air to capture the image.
“Khali, we love you,” screamed men and women alike. “The Khali bomb!” yelled a male voice. Little boys tried to climb over barricades to get closer to the stage, on a college campus.
In India, public adulation and hysteria like this is usually reserved for stars of cricket or the film industry known as Bollywood. But Khali has earned his frenzied fame by becoming the Indian icon of American TV wrestling. He is the first man from this country to rise high in the American gladiatorial adventure of World Wrestling Entertainment, winning the world heavyweight championship in July 2007.
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Previously on AW:
Big man big heart
Great Khali gears up
The journey of The Great Khali, India’s first WWE wrestler, is an astonishing one. In Tehelka, Shantanu Guha Ray susses out the man behind the spectacle:
Steve Carell, lead actor of Get Smart, once told an mtv.com reporter about a hulk on the sets who impressed everyone though he had a small role. “He could put his hand over your entire head and crush you. He’s a very sweet guy, but he did not speak English really well. I don’t even know if he was completely aware that he was doing a movie.” Carell was talking about The Great Khali, a former Mr India who briefly held, in 2007, the world champion’s title at the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE, formerly, the WWF).
Now an icon across the United States, he was India’s “champion bodybuilder” in 1997 and 1998. At seven feet, three inches, and weighing 190 kilos, he is the only Indian on the WWE bandwagon (there was Tiger Ali Singh signed up before him but Singh was from Canada). Now based in Atlanta, The Great Khali comes from Dhirana in Himachal Pradesh and old-timers in Shimla recall how one Dalip Singh Rana would toss luggage onto the carriers of buses with consummate ease. That was part-time work; his full-time job was crushing stone for local contractors.
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Previously on AW:
Great Khali gears up
