Kambala buffalo team owners want the event to be organised every year in the capital city so that they can showcase their tradition.
The Bengaluru Kambala at Palace Grounds
The blaring trumpets and thumping drums set up coastal Karnataka’s festive ambience for Kambala, held late into the night under the floodlights in Bengaluru’s Palace Grounds on Saturday, 25 November.
The decked-up pairs of buffaloes guided by their jockeys sprinted their way through the slushy, muddy water tracks to barely qualify for the races into the league.
The Bengaluru Kambala at Palace Grounds
Kambala — the 400-year-old popular traditional agrarian folk sport of coastal Karnataka — was being organised in Bengaluru for the first time by Kambala associations from the Karavalli and Tulunad areas of the state.
There were more than 70 associations — from Moodabidri, Puttur, Belthangady, Karkala, and several other taluks from the Dakshina Kannada, and the Udupi and Mangaluru districts, as well as from Kerala’s Kasaragod district — came together to organise the Bengaluru Kambala.
Thousands of people thronged the event organised in Bengaluru on Saturday. The venue had more than 130 stalls, including those serving up delicious coastal cuisine. A mega 1,000-seater stage was put up for cultural events such as Yakshagana and Bhootakola.
Buffaloes getting ready for the Kambala race
Walking past the stalls and the stage, one would get closer to the 135-metre twin slushy muddy water tracks set up for the Kambala races, with floodlights installed on either side of the tracks at regular intervals. There was a huge water tank constructed for the buffaloes to take a shower before and after they raced.
There were two large German tents on either side of the length of the twin race tracks. Under one tent were seating arrangements for spectators in the form of a gallery. The other tent was for standing, and spectators could watch the races and their slow-motion replays on three giant screens.
Two other German tents with stages and dais were put up for the inauguration and prize-distribution ceremonies close to the finishing line of the racing tracks. They were meant for VIPs and VVIPs to witness the races.
While late actor Puneeth Rajkumar’s wife Ashwini Puneeth Rajkumar formally inaugurated the event on Saturday, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah flagged off the main Kambala races in the evening.
Puttur MLA Ashok Kumar Rai is also the Kambala Committee president. The Congress leader was seen sharing the dais with many BJP leaders and MLAs, especially from coastal Karnataka, setting aside all political and ideological differences.
Former chief ministers BS Yeddyurappa, Sadananda Gowda, and HD Kumaraswamy also attended the event. Union Agriculture Minister Shobha Karandlaje was also a part of the Kambala event.
“Bombaatt” and “Chandha” were the words used often by buffaloes’ owners to describe the arrangements made for the Kambala event in Bengaluru. The coastal Kannada words are translated to “fantastic” and “beautiful”, respectively.
“We cannot imagine having a Kambala racing track like this set up back in our villages in Dakshina Kannada. The floodlights, the galleries, the giant screens, and everything else are simply superb, and being a part of this event, itself is a prideful and exhilarating experience,” said Padmanabha, the owner of a buffalo racing team from the Kadiyali village in the Udupi district.
Padmanabha had come with his two young buffaloes — Kanthu and Panthu — aged about 3.5 years. “I have brought them to Bengaluru so they may have a ‘feel’ of Kambala. The two boys are young and are being trained vigorously. By the time they are seniors, they will have brought many laurels home,” Padmanabha told South First.
A majority of the owners of the buffalo team want the event to be organised every year in the capital city so that they can showcase their coastal traditions.
Kanthu and Panthu were among more than 180 pairs of buffaloes who had been transported to Bengaluru from coastal Karnataka to take part in the Kambala event.
Food items for the buffaloes, like horse gram (hurli), oil, dry coconut (kobri), boiled rice porridge, beetroots, carrots and even almonds were transported to Bengaluru so that these buffaloes did not develop any stomach troubles due to new food in a new environment.
Many buffalo owners had even brought barrels of water from their wells back home so that their buffaloes did not fall ill due to a change in water, as all these factors also could bring down their performance.
The Boladaguthu Kambala team from Karkala.
Sathish Shetty, the owner of a Kambala racing team named Boladaguthu from Karkala in the Udupi district, told South First: “Our buffaloes give their best performance during the night time, when the sun is gone and the cold has set in. During the daytime, our buffaloes are quite dull and prefer to rest.”
Shetty had brought to Bengaluru his four racing buffaloes — “Finisher” Kaala and his partner Kollu, and the standby pair Shankara and Moda.
Shetty had been into Kambala racing for over a couple of decades. He and his team of 34 members, including jockeys and caretakers, had come in a rented truck and his SUV.
He did not bring his two favourite buffaloes, who were ruling the roost during their prime: “Champion” Dhoni and “Rocket” Bulla. The two had aged and were retired from Kambala, according to Shetty.
The more-than-180 pairs of buffaloes along with their owners, jockeys, and caretakers have been camping under shamianas and tents at the Palace Grounds since early Thursday morning.
“We had to come a couple of days early so that the buffaloes could get acclimated to Bengaluru’s weather and food, and then condition their bodies to run the races,” said Sathish Shetty.
“On the first day of arrival, they seemed to be tired after the journey and due to the change in environment, but they were back in their spirits on Friday,” he added.
According to organisers, the buffaloes that have six or more teeth were considered to be contesting in the Senior category, while the ones with fewer than six teeth contested in the Junior category.
The Halage plough that is tied to the pair of buffaloes that splashes water to a height.
There are six categories of races in Kambala: Negilu Hiriya, Negilu Kiriya, Hagga Hiriya, Hagga Kiriya, Adda Halage, and Kane Halage.
The first five categories are races meant to showcase the speed of the buffaloes, and the last category is to showcase the height of the water they can splash while racing onto the banners tied 6.5-7.5 feet above the tracks. The higher the buffaloes splash water on the banner, the more their chances of winning.
While the Negilu (plough) races run with the jockey holding on to a lighter wooden plough tied to the pair of buffaloes, the Hagga (rope) races are conducted with the jockey holding on to a rope to which the pair of buffaloes are tied.
The Halage (plank) category sees the jockey putting one foot on the plank that slides on the water and the other foot onto the wooden frame that comes from the middle of the cross-wood to which the two buffaloes are tied.
The Halage race is to make the water splash to a height of 7-8 feet up, touching the banner in order to win the race.
While most of the experienced Kambala teams from coastal Karnataka had come to witness the first Kambala event in Bengaluru to get a feel of how it was conducted in the city, professional Kambala jockeys shared how this traditional sport was close to their heart with pride and the prestige derived from it.
Jayakotian, from the Kambala team Yermal from the Udupi district, has Kambala experience of over two decades as a jockey. He said the top contenders in Saturday’s event were Mijar, owned by Shaktiprasad Shetty, and the Kolake Irvathur team, owned by Bhaskar Subbaiah Kotian.
Karnataka Kambala star Srinivas Gowda, the jockey who flaunts his eight-pack abs, runs for the Mijar team from Moodabidri in the Dakshina Kannada district.
“Buffaloes are taken care of very well in our villages. The ones that contest for Kambala are fed healthy food like bowls and buckets of almonds, horse-gram, coconut husks, boiled rice porridge with pickles, and vegetables like beetroots, carrots, and pumpkins,” Jayakotian told South First.
“These are fed to the buffaloes during the rainy season so that their body becomes tight and fit during the Kambala season,” he explained.
“There is a Kambala team called Mala owned by one Shekhar Shetty, a businessman in Karkala. The buffaloes he owns are a matter of such pride that he has even built a swimming pool for them buffaloes at his farmhouse,” Jayakotian added.
Boladaguthu team owner Sathish Shetty told South First that he had asked his jockeys to whip the buffaloes only up to four times during the race, keeping in mind the Supreme Court guidelines on the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Karnataka Second Amendment) Act.
“There are certain restrictions safeguarding the animals from mistreatment during the races, and we will abide by them,” he said.
Kambala had courted controversy and ran into legal trouble in 2014, with the High Court imposing a ban on the traditional sport based on a petition filed by an animal rights group.
However, with pressure from a few elected representatives and a section of the public from the coastal Karnataka, the state government, through the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Karnataka Amendment) Ordinance of 2017, re-legalised the Kambala sport in the state.
There was also a veterinary clinic at the venue, with veterinarians manning it around the clock.
Asked about anti-doping tests for buffaloes, the veterinarians noted that participation in such events was a matter of prestige and pride for the agrarian communities of coastal Karnataka. The participants would never resort to such tactics to win a race, they said.
“Having said that, blood and urine samples will be collected from the winning buffaloes of each category to rule out that animals drugged during the races,” a senior veterinarian told South First.
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