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The lifeline of the Games
Without them the Afro-Asian Games would be like the candle without a wick. The moment you step out of your hotel room in the morning and till you return, they are there at your service.
Without them the Afro-Asian Games would be like the candle without a wick. The moment you step out of your hotel room in the morning and right till the time you return late in the night, they are there at your service--taking care of the day’s itinerary, delivering the day’s schedule at your door-step, helping you with the results, arranging transport, acting as interpreters etc.
Yes, without these approximately 2,500-odd volunteers, the Games wouldn’t have seen the light of the day. The other day, a French delegation arrived at the Begumpet Airport and was astounded by a young college-going interpreter’s sway over the language.
“Have you ever been to France?” the Frenchman asked. “You speak better French than a Parisian,” he said.
They are very polite and their demeanour doesn’t change a wee bit in the most trying of circumstances. They are all for pride of the State and there is no way they would compromise on that one thing that matters most during a big event -- conduct.
Suresh Babu an official with the Andhra Pradesh Housing Department (APHD), was not there by his wife’s side when she was delivering their second child ? a girl ? somewhere in the distant coastal region of AP.
“When I called up my wife and said I was ashamed not to be there by her side, she chided me and said ‘don’t show any laxity in your work ... I am proud that you are serving the State whole-heartedly.’
“Now, I’ll catch the first train to my home town after the Games are over,” he says. Every volunteer would have his or her small - or big — story to tell, but the thing which counts now is they have to ensure complete success of the Games.
Courses can be covered by keeping awake late in the night; breakfast, lunch and dinner can wait till everyone else has had his full. But one thing that cannot be tolerated is sloppiness, even though they know there might not be any reward.
