Geeta Phogat making case for wrestling as India's national sport?

Wrestling could make a legitimate claim for becoming the national sport of India. It’s certainly been around for long enough. Bheem was an accomplished wrestler. So was Duryodhan. They were both so enthusiastic about and proud of their wrestling skill that when they met at the battlefield it turned into a Bollywood style standoff. For real.

Just like you see in some Bollywood movies, when the hero and villain are about to square off, they conveniently throw away their guns and get down to hand to hand combat while the cronies just stand and watch. It may not make much sense in movies but back in the days of Mahabharata, a discipline like wrestling was put up on a pedestal. Bheem had vowed to break the thigh of Duryodhan during Draupadi’s cheer ha

Give up yet?

ran, and he took to meele for doing that. Yeah he used a gada for that, but his accomplished skills as a wrestler and Duryodhan’s pride in his own skills as a wrestler led to the standoff where they just ignored the use of archers and took to beating the crap out of each other with their hands instead.

Wrestling, or Kushti as its popularly known all over India, is practiced in Akahdas as a formal discipline, across modern gymnasiums, and in an informal form in our streets as well. Wannabe streetfighters; the kind who go “Saale! Oye my backstreet boys posse hold me back! Hold me back or I’ll kill him! (Yo don’t let go man, keep a tight hold)” Those kind of guys shy away from actually throwing a punch which could result in blood. They prefer to just somehow grapple and mess around with their equally wary-of-blood-yet-testosterone-fueled opponent, with the goal being to pin the other down, and keep them in a choke hold of some kind.

Siblings wrestle all the time, they wouldn’t hit each other but their are times when a dhobi pachad is the only answer. Wrestling is a perfect platform for those looking to engage in some physical bout, some contest of superiority, to assuage their pride and yet deal damage without dealing a lot of damage.

The one, the only.. Dara Singh!

The Olympic games will give out Gold medals, but we have titles of our own which we bestow upon our wrestlers. Rustam-e-Hind, wrestling Champion of India. Dara Singh from Punjab was one. Rustam-e-Zamana: World Wrestling Champion, the great Gama became known as Rustam-I-Zamana after defeating Stanislaus Zbyszko in 1910.

Nothing beats an Olympic gold though. These days in India, Draupadi herself will come forward, pull Bheem back and go “Chill, I got this”, and proceed to break both of Duryodhan’s thighs in a minute. Wrestling has come that far in India. Geeta Phogat is the first female wrestler from India to have won a gold in the Commonwealth games in 2010, and also the first to qualify for the Olympics. She fought in the 55 kg category, and looked to break the thigh of her opponent Tonya Lynn Verbeek. But came up short.

Kashaba Yadav won the bronze medal at the Olympics at Helsinki in 1952. Sushil Kumar won the bronze at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. And now Geeta may look to make a case for it, even though she lost her first bout. Geeta will get a chance to compete for a bronze medal through the repechage system if Verbeek reaches the final. Since she has also won a gold, why not include wrestling in the running for a national sport in India?