When Khali slogged it out to earn Rs5!

new delhi — With his penury-struck parents unable to even afford his fees of Rs2.50, the Great Khali had to drop out of school and take up a plantation job available in the village to earn Rs5 a day at the tender age of eight.

His formative years were nothing if not full of turbulence. From leaving his school to working as a daily-wage labourer, Dalip Singh Rana has done it all. He was often the subject of ridicule due to his extraordinary size.

However, a determined Dalip relentlessly pursued his goal of wrestling and such was his passion that he did what no Indian had done before: enter the internationally acclaimed WWE arena.

The Man Who Became Khali, written by the wrestler along with Vinit K. Bansal, is a no-holdsbarred account of the man who not only went on to win the World Heavyweight Championship but also conquered his inner demons and physical anomalies. It is the story of how Dalip Singh Rana became The Great Khali.

The Great Khali had a difficult time in school. His friends laughed at him, he could not understand what his teachers taught and on top of it, his parents could not even pay his fees. He then decided not to go to school again.

“My schooling ended forever and so did my education. My mind was inclined to work — to work for my family and to support my parents,” he says.

The pain of poverty had by then reached its highest level.

“One day, when I was with my father, the mat (account keeper) came to him and informed him about a plantation job available in the village. He said that every worker would be paid a sum of Rs5 per day.

“As soon as I heard that, my eyes gleamed with excitement. For me, a sum of Rs5 per day was a huge amount. It struck me that not long ago, we didn’t even have Rs2.50 for my school fees. Compared to that, Rs5 seemed like a jackpot! I was motivated to work hard for it,” Khali writes.

The work was with the forest department for its new campaign to plant some trees in the village.

“I had to work at the plant nursery, which was situated some 4km down the hill. I had to collect the plants, carry them on my back, travel uphill to the village for another 4km and plan them. Once all the trees were planted, I had to go back again and get more seedlings,” the wrestler recalls. — PTI