Fifty-year-old Aramugam from Thiruvidaimarudur pounced on a charging bull and held on for dear life as frenzied crowds in Nehru stadium cheered in feverish excitement on January 22, 1974, a Sunday afternoon, in Madras.
This was the first time Jallikattu, the rural bull-baiting sport of Tamil Nadu, was brought to Madras city, or so the State Government’s Tourism Development Corporation claimed.
For the event, held as part of the Pongal tourism festival, the stadium teemed with crowds viewing the spectacle of 36 catchers attempting to demonstrate male prowess.
With tickets priced at Rs. 5, Rs. 3 and Re. 1, the public was ensured its money’s worth by two Jallikattus being organised simultaneously, allowing spectators from all sides of the stadium to partake in the thrill of taming 23 enraged bulls.
Not surprisingly, there was much that did not go quite as planned.
In one instance, a ferocious bull broke the enclosed barricades and ran amuck for fifteen minutes. Five, including a woman spectator, were injured in the bull’s unbridled run.
As the injured were rushed to the nearby General Hospital, the bull was brought under control by M.M. Ponan, an experienced bull tamer.
In another instance, an unimpressed section of the audience pelted stones at participants in the arena.
The police were then compelled to intervene in a scuffle that involved an infuriated bull, its catchers and the spectators at large.
While the sport is conventionally understood to be a part of Tamil Nadu’s rural tradition surfacing during the harvest season, the city of Madras seemed to have appropriated bull-fighting as a performance art, from around the 1950s, in its urban culture.
The reunion celebrations of the Madras Regimental Centre in 1949 and the campaign trips of Sri Prakasa, Governor of Madras in 1953, for instance, found bull fights to be popular entertainment provided for distinguished visitors.
