By Muneeza Naqvi
Special to The Washington Post
NEW DELHI At 5:15 a.m., when most little boys are still curled up in bed, 11-year-old Amit Kumar is already dressed in his workout uniform — a worn-out blue T-shirt and shorts. First he splashes his face with cold water and brushes his teeth. Then he gulps down a tumbler full of warm buffalo milk and a handful of almonds. It is a ritual he has followed for three years.
Half an hour later, with the sun beginning to peep out from behind the tall eucalyptus trees that edge his riverside tent, Amit tightens the laces on his knockoff Reeboks. He runs a damp hand through his curly hair, takes a quick look in a mirror, and he’s ready.
With just the slightest swagger, he walks onto a sandy field where several older boys toss a soccer ball around. He touches the ground with his right hand and then touches his chest, a mark of respect, much the way a traditional dancer would start a performance.
All of this is part of the regimen for a trainee in traditional Indian wrestling — a pehelwan .
The sport has a long history in India. Temple carvings and ancient paintings depict it. Ancient Hindu texts such as the Mahabharata mention it. And variations continue to be practiced in neighboring Pakistan, as well as Turkey and Iran.
Once, the sport enjoyed royal patronage and immense popularity. Whole villages would turn out to watch local tournaments. But over the past few decades, it lost ground to cricket — an obsession in this country — as well as soccer and tennis.
But for young Amit, wrestling has been a childhood dream. “This is a sport that our ancestors played. Cricket only came here with the British, “he says.
When he was 8, he asked his parents for permission to join a wrestling gym known as an akhada . His 20-year-old brother was already training, so they agreed. “I’m so happy here. I get to play sports all day, “he says. “I still have to go to school, though.”
In his years of training, Amit has lived away from his home and family in a motley collection of khaki tents on the banks of New Delhi’s Yamuna River. This is the akhada — part stadium, part temple and part hostel. In the old days, wrestlers slept on dirt floors; Amit at least has a thin, cotton mattress.
This summer morning, some of the pressure is off. The chief coach is away for a tournament; the older trainees are in charge. Boys are getting away with close to no warmup exercises or stretching. One senior boy, Sonu, who goes by one name, tries half-jokingly to cuff Amit in the ear. Amit ducks and runs to join the others on the field.
Forty minutes of a fast-moving game of soccer are followed by 30 minutes of short sprints between two clumps of trees about 50 yards apart. Then the young pehelwans flop on the field or gulp freshly squeezed orange juice. The older boys train with weights; the younger ones do flexibility exercises. A thick rope hangs from a banyan tree. Amit grabs the rope, tugs it once and then starts crawling up, his legs wrapped around the rope as he inches up.
When he comes down, he vanishes inside one of the tents, emerging in a langot , a loincloth of sorts that pehelwans wear in the wrestling pit. After the long warmup, it’s 7:40 a.m. and time for some wrestling.
Young pehelwans learn two basic techniques: Greco-Roman, in which they can grip their opponents only from the waist up, and Amit’s favorite, a no-holds-barred technique. People here say their sport was the precursor to the freestyle wrestling that is practiced around the world today.
Like generations of Indian wrestlers, Amit has been taught to treat the sport almost as a form of worship. Before entering the pit, he takes off his shoes.
There he joins Sonu, who, though slightly older, weighs about the same, between 100 and 110 pounds. In the old days, both boys would have been slathered in oil, making it nearly impossible for them to get a grip on each other until both had fallen in the dirt. Now they’re wet only with their sweat.
In the pit, Amit is in his element. It’s clear he is having fun, but he’s also alert, eyes darting to be ready for the strike.
He circles cautiously and stays low. And he uses his smaller physique wisely — moving fast, gripping Sonu around the thigh and ducking to elude him.
Sonu grabs Amit around his neck and pushes him lower. Amit is swift to react, letting go of Sonu’s thigh and grabbing him around the waist to pull him down. Everything else follows quickly: Sonu is suddenly flat on his back, with Amit astride his chest, resting on his knees.
Then Amit reaches down and offers Sonu a hand. It’s about 8 a.m. — time for the two to get dressed for school.
“I like moving fast. Sometimes I get thrown, but not too often, “Amit says upon coming out of the pit. Today, he hasn’t been thrown at all. “Lucky day, “he mumbles.
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