Lucknow, Sept. 17 -- In his more than three-month stint with India's freestyle wrestlers, Georgian coach Shako Bentinidis appears to have learnt the art of survival in the Indian setup. He has added Hindi words such as "bhai bhai", "namaste", "pahalwan" and "dangal" to his vocabulary, which has made him popular with the wrestlers.

Shako is a different man inside the huge wrestling auditorium at the Sports Authority of India's centre here. He is among the busiest and most animated figures in a crowd of 40-50 wrestlers who train there every day, alongside the Indian coaches and five-time world champion Gogi Koguashvili, the foreign head coach of India's Greco-Roman team.

"I love speaking Hindi words, especially 'bhai bhai', as everyone he...