Jacinta Kalyan, a ground curator at Chinnaswamy stadium takes pride in being the only woman doing that job in the country
Jacinta Kalyan, AKA Jessi, is the go-to ‘man’ at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. Be it accounting, greeting visitors or handling ticket sales – Jessi is a master of all trades and a proven asset for the Karnataka State CRICKET
Association. What sets her apart from the rest is that she is perhaps the only woman stadium curator in the country.
“Well, I don’t know if I am the only one. But I sure am one,” Jacinta was at her modest best when Mirror spoke to her on Sunday. “And hopefully, there will be more.”
Currently, Jacinta is one of the three curators at the stadium along with Sriram and Prashanth. She has been taking care of the pitch for over a year but she made her IPL debut only after the showers greeted the city before Royal Challengers Bangalore’s match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 13. On Saturday too, when rain delayed RCB’s tie against Kolkata Knight Riders, Jacinta was seen running around the ground overseeing the removal of covers for the pitch. “I have been doing it since the Ranji Trophy last year,” she said.
She also supervises pitch work and likes to call her staff “my boys”. “The reason I was appointed to this post is because the KSCA needed someone with a commanding voice. I also know my boys well since we have worked together over the years and that made me a good choice for this job too,” she said, all while asking one of her boys – Ravi – to check if water had been drained properly from the pitch.
The big responsibility is not a worry for fearless Jessi. “I am a woman but that does not change the work that has to be done. That’s why it’s been no different,” she said. “That said, there are the usual challenges of lethargy when you keep asking yourself ‘Why the hell should I go out in this boiling summer’ or ‘Who will work in this rain’. But I believe that if you’re really interested in doing something, nothing can stop you – even a hurricane.”
You know you have made it big when everyone passing you by salutes you. And Jacinta has made it big. An old-timer at the KSCA, she first joined as a receptionist in 1993 after finishing Class 10.
“I was born in a village in Kanakapura in 1974. I was first a receptionist near the terrace rooms at the stadium. I was then transferred to handle the accounts for a while. A few years ago, I also started handling ticketing. Now I am basically telling the boys to cover the pitch properly and also learning how exactly to maintain the grass on the ground,” she said. “There are various technicalities regarding the ground I am yet to learn like the constant level of grass to maintain, pores for draining water, etc. It’s all part of the process.”
CRICKET has always been a passion for Jacinta. The thought of a KSCA job sprang to mind while she was watching TV at home. “I was fond of these cricketers I saw, on screen, the likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev. So when it came to making a career out of handling a cricket stadium, I naturally said yes,” said Jacinta, who now lives in KR Puram.
“I also came to Bangalore at that time and joined the VV Puram evening college. So mornings I was the receptionist at the stadium and evenings I would be a college girl. It was good plan.”
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Others / by Aravind Suchindran & Durgesh Kumar, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / May 04th, 2015
