A light in Delhi's darkness

It’s not often that a person’s name represents what they actually are. Think about Graeme Smith and Graeme Swann – neither of them could be described as a gravel area, could they? What about Allan Donald and Allan Lamb? Neither of them are too harmonious. Some people, however, fit their names perfectly - like Dipender, a volunteer at the Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi.

Dipender, whose name literally means “lord of light”, was certainly a shining beacon – and completely dependable - after a difficult day at the stadium covering the South Africa-West Indies match.

Reporters have no right to complain about not receiving free internet or food when they go to work in a stadium, but given it’s commonplace in press boxes and journalists love freebies, complain they did. Both eventually arrived and stories were filed on time, empty stomachs were fed, and just before midnight, bags were packed.

Then, it was time to hit the town. Dipender knew exactly what to do. He gathered a few them and offered a lift to popular Connaught Place in his own car, ushered them into a bar, saw to it that their drinks were ordered, that they were seated comfortably and that their cab was organised to collect them at closing time.

It was a typical gesture of Indian hospitality that has become world renowned for its policy of “guest is God” but there was something a little different to finding it in a tournament volunteer who had been shouted at by some of the people he was being so kind to, for things that were totally beyond his control. Volunteers are usually passionate people, the type that just want to get involved in the game, no matter what the cost, both on their time and their humanity.

They are usually the die-hards but my impression of them had been tainted somewhat by an incident in my home country. During the football World Cup, one of the volunteers threatened to “smack” me after I could not find my seat at a Bafana Bafana warm up match and was looking in the aisle to see if someone else was in it. He was desperate for me to move and I was desperate to stay on the halfway line, where I had booked my ticket, and it all got ugly. That was before the tournament had even started and I avoided them at all cost once the real kick off arrived.

The volunteers at this event have been very different. They’ve managed to smile even when all the systems crashed and problems far more serious than a seat that could not be found were mounting. I wouldn’t have blamed them for wanting to smack some of the prima donnas who were bombarding them with requests they simply could not deal with. Dipender, in particular, went way beyond the call of duty, and even ended the evening by drawing up a list of places of interest the journalists may want to visit in their free time. He hasn’t yet offered to be the tour guide, but there are still a few more days in Delhi to see if he does.