Khel Kabbaddi

Bangalore is new to me and so are the people who have become my flatmates. A body-builder sport freak guy from north working for an IT company, a normal average looking person too much engrossed into himself, a bunch of youngsters who have just completed their engineering and are enjoying their freedom out of their home town. You meet so many new characters when you stay at different places which so become a part of your memory. You stay connected to some while some meet you by accident at some random place and you fail to recognize them. These new interactions always add a new perspective to your world. Their interests and opinions make you think why the way they are. 

One such guy is a hatta-katta Punjabi munda who is hot-headed but still cool by nature. Never thought that there exists such sport enthusiast in the north. All my life I believed that only people from the East are into the hobby of following sports. He was a surprise to me. On the other hand I had never been such a sport enthusiast and hence understanding that guy was a little difficult at times. But one day he introduced me to the game 'Khel Kabbaddi'. My instant reaction was, 'Who in the world thought of commercializing such a sport. This would never work and they are only wasting their time and money'. I never could imagine that Kabaddi can be an interesting game to watch. Playing can be but certainly not watching men fighting for that few points. I started watching and to my surprise - it was intense. It was fast paced. It was quick. It was engrossing. Simply put- it was fantastico. Soon that Punjabi munda started presenting the reality to me. I realized that this sport is being hugely followed in the north. I may not be wrong about country-wide following but the aggressive following in the northern and central states of India was enough to pull it through. And it was damn interesting to watch.

Soon I had my favourite team and a favourite player. We started playing bets on which team would win which of course I lost most of the times.  

This certainly made me realize if there lies such a potential in sports other than Cricket then why are we still holding back. I am not asking to nationalize all the sports but there are clearly many sports in addition to Kabaddi that can be made cool by proper packaging. I am sure the sponsors will show interest to such new sports. And anyways cricket doesn't attract the same craze as it used to be. People are happy checking out scores on cricinfo or cricbuzz rather than watching full 50 over match, although t20 is going to stay in my opinion.

With the rise of our Desi Sports all I can cheer now is 'Khel Kabaddi'. I hope the new season will be as interesting as the last one.

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.