The Art of Wrestling in the Subcontinent
There is a form of wrestling in the Subcontinent called Pehlwani. It features overweight but very strong men in little briefs who have been oiled up and wrestling against each other. It isn’t very different from regular wrestling but it doesn’t feature the drama or crazy storylines that professional wrestling found in the like of the WWE. It more closely resembles the Olympic sport of wrestling with take downs, grappling and submission to produce a win. But slowly over the years the popularity of the sport has been diminishing and it is now on the brink of completely being forgotten.
The wrestling characterised by Pehlwani has a long history in the Subcontinent. There was an ancient form of wrestling in the subcontinent called malla-yuddha. This prelude to the modern form of Pehlwani was integrated with the Mughal form of wrestling. “In the 16th century India was conquered by the Central Asian Mughals. They brought the influence of Persian and Mongolian wrestling to the local malla-yuddha, thereby creating modern pehlwani,”. The modern version of the game is played in mud rings and a match that was taking place in a village would be watched by all the inhabitants of that village. The big difference in modern wrestling and Pehlwani is in the training regimes and diets of the wrestlers.
The wrestlers in Pehlwani or pehlwans as they are called utilise very old school training methods. They train using tractor parts or huge dumbbell type things that they keep repeating exercises with. They have no physiotherapists or no doctors keeping tabs on their training. The other differentiating factor is in the diets of the wrestlers. Usually they eat things that they feel will bulk up muscle but these things are ancient subcontinent foods that are meant to make a person stronger. Foods such as almonds and dates are eaten and washed down with tall glasses of milk and yoghurt heavily laden with raw sugar.
These types of food are supposed to give the wrestlers strength and make them stronger. There is a big emphasis in the subcontinent on the type of food a person eats and the balance of the system of their bodies.
Another major difference between the wrestlers of the West and pehlwans of the East is the fact that the life of a pehlwan is very unglamorous and simple.
They live simple lives in village communities and exercise, eat and train constantly. They may become village heroes if they win a few matches but nothing more comes out of it. Most of them aren’t paid well enough to make a living out of it so they only pursue wrestling as a hobby and not as a full time career. This is in stark contrast to the high salaries and glamorous lifestyles of wrestlers in America. Slowly because of a lack of interest and a new generation not being interested in the sport it is slowly dying. The older generation which would comprise grandmothers and grandfathers would fondly remember the days when countries in the Subcontinent were represented by pehlwans and brought pride and distinction to the people of those countries. Now no one wants to go near the sport and only a few corners of places in India and Pakistan still foster those willing to take part in Pehlwani.
Is there a way to revive this dying art, can we bring it back from the brink of extinction? Maybe there is a way, but it will take a lot of commitment from all corners of the various countries in the Subcontinent. the governments will have to get involved and formalise the sport by setting up a governing body and pumping money into that organisation to start producing tournaments and competitions on a inter-country agenda. The next thing to do would be for people to open up wrestling training academies and start to bring about the next generation of pehlwans into the fray. Then major sponsors will have to get involved to help fund the salaries of the top wrestlers to make it a viable career option for the next generation of wrestlers. Glamour needs to be injected into the sport; maybe a move from a rural setting to an urban one might help the credibility of the sport as well and make it popular among the urban youth. If we can do all this then maybe the sport can survive and not become just another forgotten relic of ancient times.
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