Kabaddi Diplomacy

The tournament, and the game itself, meant different things to different people. For Korean sports researcher Yoon Yeong-Hak8212;coach of a team that mainly consisted of his students from a Busan university 8212;playing India was the best form of hero worship. 8220;This is the world8217;s best side,8221; he praised, detailing his decade-old efforts to popularise the sport in Korea. The Iranians, who finished second behind the hosts, impressed the crowds on all the three days. But then, they weren8217;t amateurs. According to Mohammad Ali Pour, president of Iran8217;s Kabaddi Federation, Jhoo, a traditional Iranian sport is 8220;almost identical to kabaddi8221;.

In Canada, kabaddi has become more than just an Indian game. 8216;8216;When we play at home, we have Jamaicans and West Indians also on our team,8217;8217; said Sukhvinder Singh, the 43-year-old coach. Singh, a second-hand car dealer, has been in the game for 20 years. 8216;8216;Many schools now include it in their physical education sessions.8217;8217; His sons are in the junior kabaddi team. According to Singh, Canadian clubs 8220;buy8221; players from India and Pakistan for 15,000-20,000 on three-month contracts. Canada8217;s Kartar Singh, the team8217;s manager, said kabaddi8217;s been popular in the country for almost 15 years. The Canadians reached the semi-finals and took home the Rs 50,000 purse.

For a lot of fans, especially from rural India, kabaddi remains a game of skill, wit and speed. So the stands at the Bhartiya Krida Mandir stadium, in the central Mumbai suburb of Wadala, were full of people from districts as far-flung as Raigad, nearly 165 km from the city. Like Dinesh Gavand, who runs a telephone booth in the Konkan tourist spot, Alibaug. Over the weekend, the 31-year-old shut shop and came to Mumbai with 50 friends and acquaintances to watch the event. 8216;8216;The people of Raigad love this game,8217;8217; said Gavand, his eyes fixed on the India-Canada match. 8216;8216;We love it because even poor people can afford to play it.8217;8217; Thirty-eight-year-old Mahadev Kamble, a Pune-based college employee seated next to Gavand, agreed. 8216;8216;Arre, anyway these rich people are too scared of hurting themselves. This game involves a risk, na,8217;8217; he added.

While to the average Indian, kabaddi conjures up images of rustic grounds, bruised legs and sweaty, dusty bodies, in adopted homes like the UK, it has transcended class barriers. Jagdish Billa, the 45-year-old coach of the two-week-old UK team, brought 8216;the boys8217; together when they were training at his gymnasium. These 8220;boys8221;8212;in their 20s and 30s8212;were typical phoren-born desis with accents as thick as a layer of froth atop a Punjabi lassi. The Sikh turbans have been replaced by bald pates and streaked sidelocks. 8220;Look at us. I own a gym, one of our players is a physiotherapist, another is a banker, a third a caterer,8217;8217; Billa counted. 8216;8216;This boy8217;s father even owns a golf course,8217;8217; he exclaimed, pointing at a 20-something Divender Singh.

And even though the cup finally went to the home team, many of the visitors had other plans to cheer them up. Like 30-year-old Indian-Canadian Daljit Singh, who was hoping to fulfill his childhood dream of seeing the homes of his favourite heroes8212;Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendra and Sunny Deol. Howard Stanton, a scuba diving instructor on the West Indian team, looked forward to the Taj Mahal. 8220;India was a different experience. I8217;ve always wanted to visit the country and am not disappointed at all. It8217;s a great place,8221; he said. But the 31-year-old rues the fact that despite blowing up a huge amount of money, he didn8217;t get to dance with the girls in a local dance bar. 8220;Backhome in the Caribbean, we dance with the girls. It8217;s a unique system here.8221;