Destiny’s child

Gaurav Kanthwal

This is the real story of a man who became a hero in the make-believe world of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). An over-sized, dim-witted lad struggling to get two square meals in a remote Himachal village chokeslams his mediocre life to become an iconic professional wrestler in just two years.

Dalip Singh Rana’s story is appealing for how destiny picks its own darling. In Rana’s case too, it was not a matter of choice; his anatomy made him a misfit for his poor rural background.

At seven feet, one inch and tipping the scales at 157kg, the poor lad could have, at the most, made a few heads turn in village fairs, but nothing more than that. However, destiny had already chosen a path for him; Rana just seems to have followed the script.

From 1998 to a little more than two years, Rana, a ragged labourer-turned-bodyguard, took giant leaps from Dhirana in Sirmour to Jalandhar and finally to the US where he ruled the professional wrestling world as Khali.

In his autobiography, The Man Who Became Khali, co-written by Vinit K Bansal, Rana reminisces “those moments when one of these ill-fated lives manages to rise from mediocrity like a phoenix from the ashes.”

The 44-year-old acknowledges that besides his hard work and ambition to rise higher in life, destiny had a huge role to play in his life. He counts goodness of heart and sincerity towards one’s aim as the biggest catalysts to achieve success in life.

Rana’s celebrity status is primarily due to WWE although he has acted in a handful Hollywood movies and participated in reality TV shows. However, in his autobiography, he does not have great things to say about the show business. He says that the sports-entertainment industry (WWE) earned him his name and fame, but it is full of negativity and fickle-natured people.

The former the WWE world heavyweight champion’s biggest regret remains taking part in a WWE publicity stunt called The Kiss Cam, where he was supposed to randomly kiss female participants inside the ring. The father of a three-year-old daughter admits that the dubious stunt dented his reputation irreparably and made him a butt of jokes temporarily.

However, he is thankful that the WWE gave him a wider worldview. Much of the 178-page book is about his childhood and his struggles in the entertainment industry. While the book brings you up, close to the wrestler, what remains unanswered is how he got his ring name ‘Khali’.

Recounting his days a daily wager, Rana, a class II dropout, touches a philosophical chord when he describes the pahari way of life. He says that in their fight for survival, people from hills are oblivious to the heavenly beauty surrounding them. He experienced this bliss only when he was moving out of his village for his first job….