Pehlwani: Earthen Arena, Bodies of Gods
Akhara, sanctuary, forge of champions. Here, the dark soil is tilled and bodies are shaped. In the alleys of the walled city of Lahore, life is taught. “He who rises becomes strong.” The land is as harsh as daily life—yet kind to those who respect and revere it. There are warriors and heroes. There are ordinary men with scars and wounds. There is a generation that keeps wrestling alive in Pakistan.
The land is no longer being tilled in Lahore – the land is cultivated in Lahore. Dark earth, air, water, trees, and an aura of invigorating peace and tranquility. Akhara is an oasis, a wrestling ring, asacred rectangle, tilled and sweated over, an altar of meditation, of strong men, urban warriors, bare-handed, pisand consecrated blood, of intertwined bodies, wrapped in ooil and muddy earth that fall and rise with the same nobility.
The Pehlwani is not won with strikes. It is a fight, a dancethat is both brutal andisthat flows on the hard and soft, thisisandisrtil, which echoes históstories of gló, a cool, clean, and quiet spot usually shaded by a large tree, a exercise, water for washing, and a wall where posters and photographs of famous wrestlers, those who have forged temples of muscle, strength, and respect.
This ancient style of wrestling, whose roots date back to the 4th century B.C., struggles to survive in Pakistan, but persists here and there and remains deeply ingrained in the subculture of the walled city of Lahore, a veritable time capsule built over 1,000 years ago and fortified during the Mughal, Mogor, or Mongol period (16th–17th centuries). Originally featuring 13 gates—some destroyed, others obscured by the passage of time—its walls enclose a labyrinthine network of narrow streets, mosques, and havelis (stately homes), but what really catches the eye are the people—the merchants who fill every doorway and the artisans and other guardians of ancestral crafts: calligraphy, kashi, and khundis and khussas, not to mention the street food vendors, the tobacco leaf cutters, the knife sharpeners, and the narrow street corners where barbers’ chairs and the skilled on the spot, equipped with the tools of their trade, waiting for customers.
At the end of the day, the hustleof people disappears as fast as the doors of the negóbusinesses, and silence falls. Soon, in the early morning, there is still a void poisof deserted alleys that blend into one another and faceless people sweeping rivers of trash left behind, while, tied by a rope to their hind legs, they drag the dogsstray stray thatdid survived the night.
The day has barely begun, and already warriors can be seen on the akhara of Bamma Pehlwan, a club neighboring the fascinating JGardens of Hazuri Bagh, WorldheritageWorld World Heritage Site by UNESCOsince 1981 (bounded by the Lahore Fort, to the east, by the of Badshahi, to the west, by the samadhi (funerary monument) of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, to the north, and through the Gate of Roshnai, to the south) and the city’s largest wrestling pit, famous atis today for having produced many Pakistani championsships Asianchampions.
Step by step, in the rhythm of a ritual, we seek to decipher the moments, movements, and terms of Persian origin, struggle, and herói, master and practitioner, body, soul, and dedicationtion, cocodes of honor (honesty, generosity, and self-denial), inheritedthis of kings. “‘Whoever rises up becomes strong. Great legends trained here before the Partition [of India],’ Fariq translates for us Fariq Ahmad, a master’s graduate in Sports Science who decided to start training to better understand the art. “Only those who feel is who knows what it means. Just like writing about something, if youfelt it?”
The rainy season is over. Fallen leaves are gathered from the mud. It is urgent to tend to the arena and the body. One is plowed, the other is greased and softened, ohoil and earth. The two become one. “You dig to strengthen the back and to reduce the impact on the soil.” Before the collision, the rectangle, sacred, revered by fighters— noisno one may step on wearing– –, it is carefully prepared. One or two fighters will weed the arena in a crisscross pattern and systematicallytically, back and forthback and forth, making it softer and airier, yet another preparatoryó, just like thethe earth that follows, to level the yard.
The giant short-handled hoe is systematically passed from the younger, exhausted workers to the more seasoned ones, whose muscles have been properly massaged. Some lie down so that other laborers can walk over them. It is common for some to work as straight-backers. The lines blur, cvaria sense of unity,experience is valued.
He shows off Rashid Gujjar, championhere and in MMA,focuses Riaz Molay Wala, of 90 years old, paralyzedfor three years, before stepping on the ground again. The pehlwani to Sufi asceticism, to the zurkhaneh, one notes the austerity practiced by the fakir and the dervish (or daroês), the discipline of the body.
According to the ccodes of ethicsof the martial art, the fighter is expected to be an exemplary Muslim, a man of charter, whowill enter the arena before fajr (prayer) and return at the end of the day. The soft, brown earth, considered healing, is brought from the bed of the Ravi River, mixed withwater— and sometimes sprinkled with rose water.
One of the fighters will almost always be busy grinding almonds and hazelnuts in a mortar with milk and ghee (clarified butter), preparing sardayi, a potent drink energisdrink consumed after matches. Everyone does hundreds of push-ups and squats. The fittest weara 70-gram 70 kilos around their necks. Master Bala, reciting, hitting with a stick those who make mistakes, moves among the crowd. A Sufi poet from Lahore, he lost his parents at an early age and only gave up drugs when he found the arena. “Many ofmy students have reached the top of their careers,” comments Fariq.
Almost notitby the club owner, Goga Shahia, son of Shahia Pahalwan, a fighter from pre-Partition of India, both film producers – many based on their lives and those lives of their families. Money is scarce. The men rise early and train between jobs. Debts are paid off by the careful recycling of shoe soles collected from the small factories in the walled city.
The arena, a social web, is like a sinisof of Lahore, rich and diverse, in a constant effort to preserve its heritageherheritage and improve living conditions.
Freshly painted, the club’s walls pay tribute to “The Great Gama” (1878–1960), champunbeaten of theBritish India– – “and people used to say that only death could defeat Gama” –, and a declining industry. The land is plowed the land. Thethe soil is trampled.the . Bodies rise herher.
