- Guru Hanuman
Guru Hanuman was a legendary
wrestling coach ofIndia who coached many medal winning wrestlers. He was awarded prestigeousDronacharya Award in 1987 andPadma Shri in 1983.He was born as Vijay Pal in
Chirawa inRajasthan state. He moved toDelhi in 1920.The Indian industrialist
K. K. Birla gave him land to set up Akhara. Both as a wrestler and as a coach, Guru Hanuman was a legend. Three of his disciples Sudesh Kumar, Prem Nath and Ved Prakash won gold medals at theCardiff Commonwealth Games in 1972. Other notable disciples,Satpal and Kartar Singh won gold medals inAsian Games in 1982 and 1986 respectively. Eight of his disciples got the highest Indian sporting honourArjuna award .He was a bachelor and vegetarian .He died in a car crash on 24 May 1999 on his way to
Haridwar .Guru Hanuman Akhara
This is a wrestlers training centre called akhara in traditional Hindi dialect. Situated in the
Old Delhi region, this akhara is said to have produced some of the brightest Indian wrestlers. The young wrestlers training there have an unshakeable belief that the land is blessed. So much that even when the government offered to provide a larger land with better training facilities most of the wrestlers refused to shift out of the dilapidated buildings. However due to lack of space a modern gymnasium was built by the government at some distance from the akhara which is used by the trainees. The akhara is named after Guru Hanuman and currently trains about 200 wrestlers under the guidance ofMaha Singh Rao .References
* [http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-4987277.html]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/1999/jun/21/guardianobituaries2]
* [http://www.kabaddi.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=219]
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