INDIAN MUD WRESTLING—KUSHTI. I enjoy learning about unusual or homegrown sports like noodling (the sport of catching a catfish with your bare hands) so the entry on the Smithsonian site of a photograph from the sport of kushti got my interest. (This link to the Smithsonian site, if it holds up, may preserve the photo that first caught my attention).
Here is the wikipedia entry on kushti (also known as pehlwani). “Before training, the floor is raked of any pebbles or stones. Buttermilk, oil, and red ochre are sprinkled to the ground, giving the dirt its red hue. Water is added every few days to keep it at the right consistency; soft enough to avoid injury but hard enough so as not to impede the wrestlers’ movements.”
Aside from the apparent importance of mud in the sport, there are two other things about kushti that appeal to me: 1. It It goes back to the fifth millenium. 2. Kushti wrestlers have had great success in the Olympics in the more modern wrestling sports—freestyle and Greco-Roman.