Meet the real ‘Bison’, Kabaddi coach Manathi P. Ganesan

They called him bull. When he entered the court, his fans, most of them young men and boys, would jostle near the endline to get a closer look at him, shouting his name. Mari Selvaraj was present among the spectators at one such match in Puliyangudi village near Tirunelveli. The Tamil film director was probably nine or 10 years old then. He looked at star Kabaddi player ‘Manathi’ P. Ganesan with surprise. Years later, he made a film inspired by his life. Mari’s bison Dhruv Vikram is again winning praise by playing the lead role.

At the center of it all is 55-year-old Ganesan, who played for Tamil Nadu for ten years and India for four years, winning the Arjuna Award in 1995, the second player from Tamil Nadu to be recognized for kabaddi.

The film is a fictional account of Ganesan’s life. At its core is his struggle to succeed despite the odds. Ganesan, who now lives in Tirunelveli, was in Coimbatore on a personal visit. Current coach of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Kabaddi team, he is posted as Senior Sports Officer in TNEB. Since then his phone hasn’t stopped ringing bison Came out and we talked to him a bit.

Ganesan and Mari are relatives. “Thambi talked to me after completing the shooting kernelSaying that he wanted to make a film based on my life,” he recalls. Mari and his assistants conducted several interviews with Ganesan, during which he spoke candidly about his life and the game that defined it. Once the story was ready, Mary took Ganesan under her wing to train Dhruva. Ganesan worked with the actor for over a year, at the end of which Dhruv became a good Kabaddi player himself. ”He worked hard for the role, and was willing to do anything for it,” says Ganesan.

“Kabaddi is my life,” says Ganesan. The game came naturally to him, and when he was just eight years old, he played barefoot on the mud courts of his village Manathi in Thoothukudi district. “I started playing seriously when I was 12,” he says.

Kabaddi is the lifeline for the youth in Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli. “My father played it, my grandfather also played it,” says Ganesan. “Each of the 50 to 60 villages and hamlets around Manathi has its own teams formed by a few friends.” There are Jolly Friends, Lions Club (Manathi’s team), Young Prince, Morning Star, etc., all of which append the name of their village before their village name.

“At that time, we did not have open playgrounds and Kabaddi was something that did not require much space.” For youngsters like him, who mostly worked in the paddy and banana fields around their villages, Kabaddi was a source of immense energy and brute strength running through their veins.

Once work in the fields was over, they would gather to practice, even traveling to nearby villages to play with multiple teams. It is during such tournaments that heroes are created. Ganesan grew up watching the techniques and unique characteristics of Kabaddi players like Raja, Panneerselvam and Suyambu Lingam. “They played for Thoothukudi club teams,” he recalls.

When Ganesan pursued his higher secondary studies at Pope Memorial Higher Secondary School in Sawayapuram, his sports received recognition from his physical education teacher Thangarasu, who formed a team for the school. “I played for the school team and represented Manathi and district teams,” he says. Ganesan was then invited to play for the VP Brothers team and the Sun Paper Mill team, which gave him entry into the TNEB, state and Indian teams. He played the role of centre, the position taken by the lead raider.

Mari Selvaraj and Dhruv during the shooting. Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The journey was not very easy. But Ganesan was lucky to have players like Raja, Panneerselvam and Suyambu Lingam who fought to keep their names in the selection list. He was in the team that won India a gold medal at the 12th Asian Games in Hiroshima in 1994 and also won a gold medal at the Nationals in 1993 and finished third in the Federation Cup tournament in 1995.

Ganesan says that it was only after joining the TNEB team that he could afford a special diet. “Till then, I mostly ate pazhaya soru with dry fish and a piece of karupatti on the side, and big alu urundais that my mother used to make at home with jaggery,” he recalls. To train strength and stamina, he filled sacks with sand and slung them over his shoulder, pulled heavy wooden plows across the field, and ran for hours on beach sand and pond banks. He used to practice beheading a coconut tree – which earned him the nickname Bull. “Eventually the tree broke and fell,” he says, laughing.

Ganesan is now conducting annual Kabaddi camps for boys and girls from across Tamil Nadu with Jesus Redeemes Club in Nalumavadi, Thoothukudi, and wants to identify more talent. Did his rural upbringing contribute to his game? “Maybe,” says Ganesan. “But that doesn’t mean someone from the city can’t achieve the same glory. Look at Karthika from Kannagi Nagar, whose team recently won the gold medal at the Under-18 Asian Youth Games. For someone who is willing to work hard, anything is possible.”