Advertisement
Published: September 12th 2013
The new challenger awaits
This guy (the bull) will challenge the last victor down in the middle of the crowd“Ox fight tomorrow 6.30am” said Naryan as we finished a delicious meal prepared by Ms Cinamon (Simone – an American cook who has set up house in the Kullu mountains). We all raised our eyebrows and tried to get our heads around he was on about. Not much gained except that there was some kind of
mella happening up the road in the morning involving bull fights. We were interested and left things that night with the deal that
if the weather was good in the morning, I would ring Simone to both wake her and her friend Cassie, and confirm that David (a friend who had come up for the day and was sleeping in my cottage that night) and I would pick them up
en route to attend the event.
As is
par or the course, we only had a vague notion, based on what we
thought we had understood from Naryan's basic English and our basic Hindi, of where exactly this event was to take place. In our minds, it was just at the end of a small turn off at the Bahu junction at the top of the mountain. Of
Bring it on!
As the challenger is brought down, the last victor awaits. Each tussle only lasts a couple of minutes before one bull bluffs the other into running away. cause, it turned out to be several kms walk beyond that point, confirmed by the roar of a crowd in the distance that carried across the crisp mountain valleys, giving the illusion that we were much closer than we were. As we approached, we could see a swirling crowd down amongst the tall
deodar trees at the bottom of a rise, as they avoided two bulls locking horns.
Naryan had explained the night before that two bulls would fight until one ran away – and the remaining bull was the champion. What we did not know was that there were some 60 bulls brought from the surrounding villages and after each contest, the 'champion' bull would take on another contender (led to the area by its owner wielding his staff to edge the beast on). We were late of course due to the longer than expected trek to get to the place. But still there was at least another hour of the process of eliminating the contesting bulls down to just one overall champion. Apart from perhaps lost pride, the bulls seemed to suffer no pain at all. It was all just bravado for them. Each encounter lasted perhaps
Festival stalls
People were sitting around catching up on news over chai and snacks. 2 minutes. It was a miracle that none of the crowd were hurt though, there being no enclosure and the bulls sometimes menaced the crowd as they made their way to meet their rival, including a few times when they charged and chased people through the scrub.
Amidst a carnival atmosphere, people were standing all over the hill, and many were up in the trees to get a better view. It was also obvious that money was changing hands in some quarters as bets were taken on which bull would triumph in each round – and I guess odds were then shortened as the stakes of the eventual winner improved.
Meanwhile we learned that this
mella had been going all night. There were stalls just next to a temple area selling
chai, pokora, sweets and junk (plastic jewellery etc). From what we could garner from some of the 3,000 strong crowd, there had been eating and music and carrying on to the early hours of the morning, with people sleeping out amidst the trees. Had we known all this we might have come the day before – but its not unusual to learn about these events by chance
Away from the maddening crowd
Up the hill from the main temple area were smaller temples amongst the trees. Good spot to get away from the maddening crowd for a tete-a-tete. and way too late to be able to get there at the start.
Once the champion of champions had been established, its owner led the animal up the hill to the temple, where it was presented with flower garlands by the Brahmin priest and then fed a scrumptious breakfast of specially prepared breads.
We thought that was it – and made preparations to return to the bikes. But then music started up across the way on the other side of the temple. “Lets just take another look” suggested Simone. We soon realised that the main event here was the religious festival whereby the gods that lived in this temple were to be taken on an excursion, first around the temple amidst much fanfare and ceremony involving horns and flutes and drums, and then down to the pond for some rituals involving water, and finally down the hill to the host village for more feasting and ceremony.
This was a meeting of people (men and women, young and old) from the surrounding remote villages splattered across the mountains as far as you could see. This was where old friends would gather this one time in a year (but
The town jester
This guy definitely fulfilled a role of mucking around in the crowd while the bulls were fighting. Facial gestures, a small whistle and flute, make up and dress. of course there are many other such festivals spread across the year in different places for different reasons) to reacquaint their relationships, to catch up on news, to possibly suss out marriage prospects, and to generally have a good time (mind you, one young man assured me that the primary reason for this event and his attendance was the religious significance, “to honour the gods”– but he did accept that checking out the beautiful young mountain women was number two on his priority list!).
This was the rich fabric of the strong social system in the mountains. You'd be hard pressed to find such an atmosphere in the west other than perhaps very small village country fairs. There was something going on in the way people were interacting with such joy. It is a really special culture still
Advertisement
Tot: 0.247s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 14; qc: 85; dbt: 0.132s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
