The discreet charms of akhadas

I learnt about these thrilling episodes, among many others, from Kustirangada Diggajaru, writes Gowda

A wrestling match was raging in Bangalore. A large crowd had formed to watch it. The year was 1950.

Tall and finely built, both the wrestlers kept the fight going, matching technique (dao) with counter-technique (tod). All the while, a man in a black coat and black cap and with vermilion marks on his forehead shouted excitedly from the stage to encourage them, his eyes keenly following every movement in the akhada (arena). He rose suddenly and started making his way towards the wrestlers. One of the wrestlers, Ismail, who was from Davangere and enjoyed fame as the ‘Gama of Mysore’, had just used the tibbi dao to bring down his opponent to the ground. As the crowd cheered, the man in the black coat took off his golden wrist watch and thrust it in the hands of the winner. This sports aesthete was Annayappa, a wrestling contractor in Bengaluru whose integrity and commitment was known across Maharashtra, Punjab and Pakistan.

Annayappa’s young daughter, Ramakka, was superbly skillful at swinging a metal baton with water sprinklers at its ends. Blown away by her talent, the Maharaja of Mysore offered to build a gymnasium for her if she wished to train girls in this skill. Her father had been diffident: “It’s better that young children not shoulder big responsibilities.”

In the early part of the 20th century, around 1915, Pehlwan Amiruddin Qureshi, a wrestler from outside Mysore, had posted notices all over Mysore city challenging the locals to wrestle with him. By this time, he had already “shown the sky” to every local wrestler. The wrestlers and their gurus and fakirs went into a huddle: none among them, it became clear, could take on the challenge. A deep silence followed. One of the teachers soon noticed a farmer’s son returning from his farm on his bullock cart. After studying him at length, he felt certain that he could be trained to win against the Pehlwan.

A rigorous training regime followed for the farmer’s son, Basavayya. He had to climb up and down the Chamundi Hill very early in the morning, with two wrestlers on his shoulders. To keep him inspired during the exercises, his teacher sang alongside. Basavayya’s body soon grew strong. He also learnt the secrets of various wrestling techniques. A date was then found for the contest with the Pehlwan. In the sold-out wrestling show, Basavayya was able to pin down Amiruddin Qureshi after several rounds. The Pehlwan vowed never to wrestle again, and Basavayya went on to become a champion wrestler. Still, they became good friends.

Two years before this wrestling episode, a heavily-built wrestler from North India had thrown an open challenge on the popular wrestling arena inside Jaganmohan Palace, Mysore. None of the local wrestlers responded to his call. A tall, fair and sinewy man, Sardar Gopalaraje Urs, a member of the royal family, then stepped inside the arena and extended his arm to accept the challenge. His deep breaths made his chest heave, tearing the buttons off his shirt. Oddly, the other wrestler withdrew his challenge. A wrestler and a wrestling trainer, and widely liked for his impartial refereeing, Gopalaraje Urs ably oversaw the wrestling matches during the month-long Dasara festivities in Mysore for a few decades.

I learnt about these thrilling episodes, among many others, from Kustirangada Diggajaru (‘The Giants of Wrestling,’ Kannada Book Authority, 2010) by M Narasimhamurthy. His lively profiles of eight wrestlers, including brief asides about several other wrestlers, trainers and patrons, show traditional Indian wrestling to be a beautiful, open affair: trainers and the garadis (training centres) welcome anyone interested in the sport; and, community barriers do not exist in the wrestling competitions: Hindus and Muslims, high and low castes, meat-eaters and vegetarians, North Indians and South Indians, everyone freely wrestles with each other, making the garadi and the akhada truly unique cultural spaces. The audience, too, does not allow the social identities of the wrestlers to matter for their enjoyment: the man with the better talent wins, and that is that.

The physical culture of wrestling sees a range of dietary conventions, with differing ideas of how food relates to the body. Even within the same garadi, some eat meat, and some put their faith in fruits and vegetables. What the wrestlers ate never offers a basis for judging their performance.

With its own cartography of garadis and akhadas stretching across different parts of India over centuries, traditional Indian wrestling, which prizes technical finesse and keeps out brutality, and where the honour of the garadis and their gurus and fakirs matter so much, is still seen in small towns and cities, at a safe distance from the glamourous world of commercialised sports but in need of new sources of sustenance.