Hari Shambhu brings a sense of relief for the Indian contingent at the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea here. He is not an athlete. Neither is he a doctor or a physiotherapist. Shambhu is just a 20-year-old volunteer and like all other hundreds of volunteers, his job is to help the guests — athletes, officials and media — at the athletes village.
As the name suggests, he is an Indian and only those who have been to a country where it is difficult to find an English-speaker can understand the importance of a Hindi-speaker. The South Koreans are not good in English. And having someone who can understand and communicate your message is a big relief, especially at a big competition like the Asian Games.
Shambhu is not a Korean resident nor does he work or study here. He is from Haripad town in Alleppey district of Kerala. One year back he went to Japan on a student visa to study Bachelor of International management at the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Oita, Japan.
“I got a notification through my university that the Asian Games organising committee of South Korea needs volunteers. I immediately contacted them and applied here. After that they interviewed me and took me in,” Shambhu said.
“It was an advantage that I could speak Hindi, even though not very fluent but enough to survive. And then I can speak Malayalam and Tamil. And English, of course. I am fluent with Japanese too. So, I can communicate with almost all the players from India,” he added.
When the organizers sat to down to assign the jobs to the selected volunteer, Shambhu was an automatic choice for the Indian delegation. He and a team of 12 other volunteers from Korea are currently attending to the Indian team.
However, it wasn’t this easy for Shambhu. Since he was to act as a bridge between people from two countries, he was asked to learn Korean. learning wasn’t the difficult, managing time for language between business classes was. For four months he took Korean classes. “As of now I can read and write very well but I can’t talk fluently,” Shambhu said.
Now that he is here for the Games, he is missing all his classes. But Shambhu is not regretting it since he is able to meet and talk to his heroes. “I met Gopichand sir, then Saina Nehwal and Abhinav Bindra. I am waiting for Sania Mirza,” Shambhu said excitedly.
“I asked them about the competition, their life and achievements. It was a friendly chat. They also asked about my background, university and all,” he added.
Shambhu, whose parents are school teachers, was sad that Indian cricket team is not participating in the Asian Games. “In school I used to play cricket and badminton but unfortunately the Indian cricket team is not coming here. I am a bit sad about that.”