Gajbhiye And The Art Of "Tiger" Maintenance.

No no,Gajbhiye is no Jim Corbett and "Tiger" does not refer to any deadly predator. How titles can be misleading....right. My aunt Manorama was once telling me the story about one of her distant relative by marriage.He, an innocent child of 15, while wandering across the town, entered a cinema hall showing a movie named "Victoria's Secret" anticipating it as some kind of a thriller. To much of his embarrassment the movie turned out to be one of those works of celluloid which they suggest to have "mature content". Poor little soul!!!
However I can assure you that you are not up to any such kind of embarrassment here. This man Gajbhiye,born Arvind Gajbhiye, is probably the only person in the world of sports who is a curator of a cricket ground, maintains tennis courts,volleyball courts,basketball courts,table tennis tables and what not. And all this he does with distinction. (and exasperation of the students.) By the way,I forgot to tell you the "Karma Bhoomi"(place of working) of Gajbhiye.
He is the head groundsman at the Visvesvaraya National Institute Of Technology,Nagpur.
Now you must be thinking who the hell is this "Tiger". "Tiger" is the giant roller with the help of which our man ,Gajbhiye, carries out his duties.
Just like a ringmaster has complete command over every movement of a Tiger in his custody, Gajbhiye also exercises complete control over his "Tiger".Yes,it is his "Tiger". Without the consent of its master this mighty "Tiger" completely refuses to co-operate and won't move an inch until you have won the confidence of his tamer. Now this is a bit tricky because it takes a lot of tact to win the confidence of Gajbhiye. You should be able to decode the signals transmitted by this man. If you are able to do so,you can tell accurately whether the pitch will be watered at 4.00PM if you have practice at 4.30PM, whether the mighty "Tiger" will run out of Diesel just a day before your practice match and a lot many things. So all you need to do is ,from time to time, replenish Gajbhiye's stock of the restoratives and share your snacks with him at the cricket ground. That's it. He is indeed a man of simple tastes.
Once you win his confidence then just sit back and watch the master at work. He can provide with any type of cricket pitch, be it a belter, a seaming track, a crumbling wicket..anything. You just have to ask for it. He makes the practice wicket ready when you want it...not only the strip but the crease markings and stumps and everything is in place (here he needs a bit of exhortation from Madan Kaka...a senior member of college ground staff...more on him later). Indeed once a senior and experienced umpire(a respected member of the region's panel of umpires) told me that he hasn't seen a marker as deft and accurate as Gajbhiye. Now that takes some skills and quality to win the admiration from such a senior professional. His dedication and discipline is truly worth following.He turns up at exactly 7 o'clock in the morning on the day of a cricket match. And makes the ground ready for play before the scheduled start. This may seem a trivial to you if the word cricket means only International cricket to you. However on the local circuit it is very common of having wet pitches, groundsmen not turning up on time and thereby delaying the start of the game. Sometimes you have to go to the groundsman's house, wake him up, place him on your vehicle and bring him to the cricket ground. In the light of all such experiences one can easily understand why Gajbhiye deserves accolade. I still remember on the occasion of Diwali a lot of our seniors(who came to their homes to spend the holidays) turned up at the cricket ground and expressed the desire of arranging a cricket match between the current bunch and the alumnis. However there was a problem. Gajbhiye was on leave and next day,as I still remember, was about to leave for attending the marriage of his sister-in-law. We went to his home and one of our seniors requested him to prepare the wicket. Deeply moved,this man Gajbhiye, he promised to put in best of his effort. True to his word,before he left(along with the restoratives) to attend the marriage, he had prepared an extremely decent pitch and we were able to have our practice match. I really felt very bad and I could see the disappointment in his eyes when ,only because of some weird decision taken by college authorities, he could not accompany the college squad to the Inter-NIT Sports Meet at Warangal. The fact that earlier he was assured a berth in the squad only to be denied later added to his agony. But he took it in extremely right "spirit" and the issue was over.
I have practically spent my four years of engineering doing nothing but playing cricket and occasionally TT and volleyball. I can tell from my experience that because of such men of quality like Gajbhiye and those monsters of machines called "Tiger" the sporting culture has thrived in my alma mater and over the years has provided young men with the opportunity to leave their hostel rooms(where they sleep whole day), the boring classrooms(here again they are found sleeping) and enjoy their college life in true sense.Long live Gajbhiye and his "Tiger"!!!