When an Indian Kushti wrestler rolls in the earth, his hair and body become covered in the burnt-umber hue of soft clay. It’s said that he becomes “of one color.” This is meant literally of course — his black hair is matted down by the same mud that covers his body — but it also conveys a spiritual ideal. Wrestling in India, which counts Kushti as one of its indigenous disciplines, has a monastic history. Winning a wrestling match (or a Kushti-Spardha) isn’t the ultimate goal. The attainment of a kind of virtuous integrity of mind, spirit, and body is: being of one color.
Higher aspirations than victory shouldn’t be mistaken for softness. Kushti fighters are strong and they live to train and fight. Like Aussie Muay Thai fighter James Polodna, who literally lives at Montreal’s Tristar Gym and isn’t allowed company, Kushti fighters reside in their training facilities and submit themselves to a Spartan routine. They abstain from alcohol, drugs, meat, and women. They live apart from society because theirs is not a universal pursuit. Life in the akhara, the monastery-like gyms where upwards of 60 fighters live and train, is rigorous and austere. Yes, there’s glory in victory, but it’s fleeting. To Kushti wrestlers, there’s immortality in the cultivation of the essence of strength.
That strength starts with the mud. Students at akharas cart hundreds of pounds of soft earth from riverbanks and lakebeds to their gyms every few weeks. That earth is mixed with oil, turmeric, rosewater, and sometimes buttermilk to create a fragrant, pleasing surface on which training exercises and bouts take place. The wrestling pit is covered, either by a thatch or concrete roof, to keep out the sun. Training is an orchestrated chaos of arched limbs and strained faces. Holds, moves, countermoves, throws are practiced in the rich darkness.
Days are regimented. Early in the morning every fighter studies under the guru of the akhara and practices a series of moves and countermoves called Jor (literally “exerting force”). This complex vocabulary of grappling includes familiar freestyle wrestling takedowns and more exotic, and potentially dangerous, maneuvers like using your head to pivot your body out of a hold. These moves are practiced until they become rote.
After morning practice the wrestlers eat. Their diet is highly structured as well. They’re all vegetarians and so they get their protein from a thick mixture called Khurak, made from clarified butter (ghee), milk, almond paste, or chick peas. They eat great volumes of this stuff. There are tales of fighters who would go through 50 pounds of ghee and 80 pounds of almonds a week. The better part of the afternoon is spent resting and followed by another regimen of strengthening exercises. Then more Khurak. Then sleep. When fighters compete they do so at raucous village festivals called Kushthi-spardhas that thousands in India’s north and central regions attend. These competitions tend to last all day, with featured fights unregulated by time or scoring. Pinning a man is the only way to win.
In other words, there are thousand differences between Kushti and modern-day mixed martial arts (the diaper-like loincloths the fighters wear differ significantly from ad-covered MMA shorts, and American MMA gyms are rarely, if ever, dedicated to monkey gods). But the differences are actually only superficial. The ethos of restraint, the cloistering off from society, and the aspiration towards achieving something transcendent are shared by both kinds of fighter. So is the yearning for competition.
And just like MMA and other western combat sports, kushti has its own legend — its Babe Ruth, its Muhammad Ali, its Fedor Emelianenko. Joseph S. Alter, an anthropology professor at the University of Pittsburg and scholar in Indian fighting, told me about the Great Gama, a Kushti fighter from the outskirts of Amristar in the Punjab who rose through the ranks of Akhara training, became a national champion in India by the age of 19, and, at the invitation of British wrestling promoter, landed on the cold shores of England in 1910. Once there, he won the John Bull belt by defeating Stanislaus Zbyszko in bout that lasted three hours. The Great Gama became world champion.
So, when the UFC announced that it would launch The Ultimate Fighter: India in 2013, at a press conference in Mumbai on September 11, 2011, and Man Jit Singh, the CEO of the company the promotion would be partnering with, pointed to India’s “long legacy of Kushti,” and said he hoped that “our fighters from the akharas and gyms will progress and eventually become UFC champions,”the questions were obvious: Could kushti find its way into the MMA fighter’s technical vocabulary, and could India once again produce a world champion?
Prof. Alter was intrigued when I put the question to him, but he warned that there is what he called an “idiosyncratic rather than pervasive masculinity” in Indian culture that complicates the rise of Indian wrestling and could keep it from having the kind of influence on the development of MMA some might hope for.
“Masculinity is more nuanced in the sense that there are two related dimensions,” he said. “It’s linked to self-discipline and the moral, non-violent, balanced, and considered restraint. The preservation of the essence of masculinity is what’s valued. That’s what makes a strong person.”
By Krishna Andavolu
Vice
Photos by Mitchell Kanashkevich
(2001)
However some thoughts rankled in my mind. If the Hindus were truly slaves for a thousand years plus, then how have we survived to this day with dignity and honour and with a spiritual tradition stretching back to the mists of time and beyond? Many other cultures, civilisations and spiritual traditions have been reduced to museum pieces, but the words of the Holy Vedas are recited in an identical fashion today as they were thousands of years ago when first revealed to the Rishis.
Following the death of their founder, Muhammad we see the Arab Khilafat expand swiftly over the Middle and Near East, pouring over the deserts of North Africa and crossing the waters to begin a six century occupation of Spain and beyond. The combined might of Christian Europe struggled again and again to reclaim the ‘holy lands’ to end in bitter failure with the rise of the Ottoman Empire, who ruled over a large part of Eastern Europe for centuries.
With the inspiration of Sant Gorakhnath the warrior clans of the Rajputs united under their legendary king Bappa Rawal and in a series of Battles known collectively as the Battle of Rajashtan inflicted a heavy defeat on the Arab invaders in 738 CE. Any further advances by the Arabs were repelled, impelling the formation of large organised Hindu states in the centre and west of India. Frustrated by their failures in India the Arabs turned northwards shortly after defeating the Chinese Empire in the Battle of Talas in 751 CE opening the gate for the Islamisation of Central Asia. India remained unaffected for another three hundred years. (the “thousand years of slavery theory” was beginning to shake)
Two further centuries passed as further advances were resisted until a breakthrough around 1200 CE allowed the invaders access to the North Indian plains. The remaining Buddhists were slaughtered or converted in an unprecedented orgy of violence and horror. The majority Buddhist regions of Afghanistan, Kashmir and West Punjab joined the crescent banner of Islam. However the conversion of Hindus was slower and the resistance was more fierce. Hindu warrior clans kept up a relentless resistance fighting from the deserts, the mountains and the forests. The heavy cavalry of the Muslim Turks which had proved fatal to the Crusaders of Western Europe were victorious on the plains of North India but this did not prevent an endless cycle of attack and counter attack by the Hindus.
The religious traditions of India had been severely mauled by the endless bloodletting over the past two centuries. Many important institutions and temples were destroyed. Prosperity suffered, as it tends to in times of continuous war. This created a certain weakening of Hindu society. Religion became preserved in rituals which were less and less understood. Sanskrit learning was on the decline. Caste became more rigid.
Other larger organised resistance emerged in the Vijaynagara Empire of South India around 1336 CE which consolidated Hindu resistance for over two centuries. In the north the revival of the Rajput kingdoms and the defiance of kings like those of Orissa under the Gajapati Kings, the hills of Punjab under Jasrath Khokhar and the rise of neo Hindu kingdoms in the north east of India along with the entire hill region signaled the revival of Hindu rule over vast tracts of India.
He instead moved away from the tenets of Islam to a new faith of the Din i Ilahi. By following the age old traditions of religious toleration in India he endeared himself to the majority population and through a period of compromise and alliance brought a brief period of peace to the troubled land.
The march of western civilisation ended the Hindu revival at a time when Hindus exercised control over almost the entire subcontinent. But it took Three wars with the Marathas, two wars with the Gurkhas, war with the Jaats, also smaller ranging wars with the Santhals, Sanyasis and many others .
However the theories propagated by the British found challengers from the Hindus. Spurred by a revaluation of their history and the knowledge of western theories a new revival began to take fruit. From the universal preaching of Swami Vivekananda to the guns of the Anushilan Samiti the Hindus were at the forefront of a growing anti colonial challenge to the most powerful empire in the world. Finally finding control of the subcontinent untenable in the teeth of endless opposition the British Indian Empire collapsed in a wave of unprecedented bloodshed which has seen a slow and steady spread and reach of the Hindu world.
Attack after attack was defeated. Horrific massacres did not force the people to abandon their religion and identity. The destruction of holy places did not see dharma die but rise again and overcome their opponents with the power of truth. The banner of freedom was raised generation after generation despite the best attempts of some vested parties to blur the truths and sacrifices made again and again.