Muscular men lined up in the auditorium at the Karnataka Exhibition Authority (KEA) Grounds in Mysuru on Thursday as the authorities went about pairing wrestlers, who will fight each other during the ‘Nada Kusti’ or traditional wrestling competition organised as part of Dasara festivities.
Even though the State government has sought to keep the celebrations low-key this year and restricted the annual Dasara sports to a district-level event, the authorities have decided to retain ‘Nada Kusti’ after cancelling the State-level and national-level wrestling competitions.
The wrestlers were paired with each other on the basis of their height and weight and by the end of the day, the authorities had paired 119 wrestlers, who will take on each other in the bouts to be held from September 13 to 18. “More pairs of senior wrestlers will be added in the coming days. We may have to hold about 20 bouts every day as part of the competition,” said D. Ravi Kumar, Additional Secretary, Dasara Traditional Wrestling Competition, 2015.
But, veteran wrestler, Puttaswamy, who was the president of the Dasara Wrestling Sub-Committee last year, claimed that the number of wrestlers turning up for the competition had dipped this year. “We had more than 200 pairs wrestling each other last year in ‘Nada Kusti’ alone,” he claimed.
However, Mr. Ravikumar said that the quality of wrestlers this year was better than last year.
“But, we have received entry from quality wrestlers this year,” he said.
The scaled down Dasara celebrations this year has also robbed women wrestlers of an opportunity to flex their muscles.
The authorities have decided to cancel not only the State-level and the national-level wrestling competition, but also the women’s wrestling competitions.
“The women’s wrestling competitions have been cancelled this year. There is no women’s category in ‘Nada Kusti’ competitions,” said D. Ravikumar, Additional Secretary, Dasara Traditional Wrestling competition 2015.
“It is only male wrestling that was part of Dasara tradition. The women’s wrestling competitions are of recent origin,” said Mr. Ravikumar.
