Frenzied welcome for wrestler - ‘We want Khali - We want Khali'

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 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 heavy weight championship in July 2007.

The square-jawed wrestler weighs 420 pounds, is 7 feet 3 inches tall and measures 63 inches around the chest. He also goes by the names the Great Khali and Mahabali-Khali Khali Who Has Great Strength. The Mahabali title is often applied to the Hindu monkey headed god Hanuman.

Last month, Khali returned to India for a month long vacation. Thousands of fans were waiting with marigold garlands at the New Delhi airport when he landed. Since then, it's been one fanatical welcome/near-stampede after another.

Khali has kept a back-to-back schedule, meeting reporters, schoolchildren, slum-dwellers, politicians, and some of those Bollywood stars and cricketers.

"He is our own Rocky Balboa. From zero to hero," said Darshan Rewar, a 22-year-old engi neering graduate who arrived with his family three hours before the scheduled time of Khali's public appearance at the Mumbai college campus.

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