Sports

The Colours of Hola

by PRAVEEN DASS

The testosterone level during the Hola Mohalla festival at Anandpur Sahib in Punjab is so high, even the beasts of burden twirl their moustache. Here's a ringside view of the high-octane mock battle fest.

It's the thundering hooves that do it really. As dozens of horses charge down a corridor of jostling spectators, carrying riders fiercely intent on spearing small clumps of hay a few feet away, atavistic memories flicker into life in my head. So that's what facing a cavalry charge feels like, I note, before I'm elbowed aside by fierce-looking Sikhs armed to the teeth with scimitars, spears and hatchets. Carl Jung would have been delighted.

Sikh warriors charging targets is the penultimate act at the Hola Mohalla festival, celebrated every Hola [not the tame, wussy Holi which consists of throwing coloured powders at each other] at Anandpur Sahib, a small town by the Sutlej in north-east Punjab. Nestled in an oddly dusty plain beneath gently rolling hills, Anandpur is famous for its many historical and majestic gurdwaras. And for Hola Mohalla.

In an extraordinary coda to three days of worship and festivity, the Hola celebrations conclude with displays of traditional Sikh martial prowess on a grassy plain by the Charan Ganga River.

Festivities begin at noon with gatka exponents carrying an array of traditional weapons onto the field. Gatka is a Sikh martial art that uses a variety of weapons and strangely balletic movements. Eager young fighters are supervised by older instructors as they stage mock battles with sticks, knives, axes and swords. Gatka schools from across Punjab - and abroad - send teams to compete in the event. No prizes though, shrugs Gurmeet Singh, as he awaits his turn and swats another noisy apprentice with his rhino-hide shield. A teenage gatkabaaz from Patiala, he's been training since he was nine.

It's clearly carnival time for the hundreds of thousands gathered. A Punjab police band with its bagpipes and kilts adds a surreal hue to an already special afternoon. Other teenagers next to me begin tittering as the band strikes up its next tune. It's the title song of the Bollywood hit 'Singh is Kinng' - a popular sentiment across this nation. Obviously.

Hola Mohalla is a 300-year-old tradition. Greatly irked by rising Mughal intolerance in the 17th century, Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, inspired the Khalsa, a fighting force of warrior monks and bade them to prepare for combat from here at Anandpur. Defending the honour of all - especially the weak and the opressed, regardless of their faith and beliefs - was made essential to the faith, as was the need to sport distinctive symbols of Sikh identity from then on. Elements of language were toughened up too. Several words were converted to the masculine. The feminine Holi was left behind; hence, the emergence of the macho Hola.

It is a proud martial tradition that is celebrated on Hola Mohalla. One that saw various jathas and misls - Sikh legions - take on fading Mughals forcefully, slap down pesky invaders from Nadir Shah to Ahmad Shah Abdali, and - under Maharaja Ranjit Singh - finally conquer large parts of troublesome Afghanistan. No mean achievement that [considering that it is the only time in history that the Afghans have been conquered, even taking into account the current misadventure of the Americans in the region.] 

Not surprisingly, the British Raj was inspired by the concept of ‘martial races'. At Anandpur on Hola Mohalla, there's little doubt what the burra sahibs meant. Martial is firmly welded to race, with large dollops of testosterone thrown in.

But that part of the party only kicks into high gear when the Nihangs Singhs (from the Persian for crocodile) come marching in. Camped all around town in chhaawnis (cantonments), they pay obeisance at Anandgarh, the historic fort and gurdwara complex, before marching to Charan Ganga in the early evening.

Despite being told to watch out for them, nothing prepares you for the sapphire sea of humanity that pours in. Hordes of Nihangs in electric blue gowns flood the ground, many mounted on every sort of beast domesticated for combat: horses, elephants, decorated mules, even the odd camel. A dragon or two dropping in wouldn't make much of a difference. Other Sikhs - brandishing rifles, sunglasses and twirled moustaches - arrive in SUVs, jeeps, tractors and trucks.

Splendidly turbaned and bearded, sporting saffron sashes and motley regalia on their blue chogas (robes), the Nihangs carry banners, ornamented spears, ceremonial fans and, of course, swords. Lots of swords. Clans converge at a central spot. This is as much annual conclave as it is martial display. Various jathedhars are honoured; old acquaintances are renewed. The ceremonial fighting and charging soon follow.

That's when the ground shifts to Planet Testosterone. Hola Mohalla is machismo on overdrive. Even the dust soon appears redolent of traditions of martyrdom and honour. Loudspeakers celebrate Sikh history. The martial mien is everywhere.

The animals appear to sense the testosterone too. Tetchy looking horses keep snorting and eyeballing my camera ominously , as do some of their masters. I'm left impressed again - even the beasts appear warlike though bhang mixed with animal feed, I'm later told, might probably be the reason.

But all is not about martial valour alone. Equality and service to fellow men are important credos in Sikh tradition. Walking around Anandpur at night offers ample evidence.

At one of the many camps, Karnal Singh, farmer and volunteer, sword dangling by his side, is stirring something in a degh big enough to boil a couple of Mughal foot soldiers. Dal for tomorrow's langar, he tells me, to be served with rotis and a subzi or two. Free langars, communal kitchens integral to all gurdwaras and Sikh events and institutions, are the principal means of feeding pilgrims.

Over two million people come to Anandpur Sahib for Hola Mohalla, says the manager at the city's shrine, the Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib. Preparing for them is quite a task. The Punjab Government makes special arrangements to cope with the rush. Many pilgrims appear to cope by themselves.

Billeted in large tents everywhere, asleep inside and underneath vehicles, and in makeshift trailers attached to tractors, most appear intent on worship at the gurdwaras. And in attending the many melas that have sprung up everywhere.

From ferris wheels to 'Walls of Death' - one with a Maruti 800 complementing the usual motorcycle in the gladiatorial arena - Hola Mohalla is one big party: an extraordinary funfair for the faithful like few others. Anywhere.

As cries of ‘Wahe Guru ka Khalsa, Wahe Guru ji kii Fateh' echo around the Charan Ganga ground at dusk, no visitor would disagree that, in this nation, Singh is truly King.

[Edited version of the original first published in the Times of India]

March 14, 2010

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