Grappling women brings business to a halt

kolkata: louis philippe shirts and dockers trousers jostled for space with muti-coloured lungis and dirty workmen's clothes in every corner of the narrow mirbahar ghat street in burrabazar on a sunny saturday afternoon as several hundred men cheered wildly and egged on some extremely agile and powerful young women as they grappled with each other and furiously lunged at each other's throats.from noon to sunset on saturday work took a back seat in the business hub of kolkata - as gaddi owners, daily labourers, students and even the passer by, stopped to watch teenage women from punjab, haryana, delhi and bengal wrestle each others for the title of mahila bharat keshari. the two-day wrestling competition organised by the burrabazar byam samity saw 16 women and 30-odd men fighting hard to stay off the mat. there were many winners - nag raju and hari gope for the men and the lanky and good looking young deepika kaliraman among women. local talents pampa das, piyali das and soma das also brought smiles to the faces of their coach - making light work of their fancied opponents from delhi and punjab. the men fought hard and rough - grappling, swearing, moving swiftly and breathing hard as they almost fought to kill. the audience cheered on in sheer admiration. but it was the women who enthralled. people perched on windows, rooftops and every possible inch of the narrow lane which had been blocked off from either side - cheered lustily as pampa and piyali grappled with national games gold medallists like sukhvinder kaur of punjab and pushpa sharma of delhi. "i have never seen women fighting like this before. it's really good to watch. i haven't moved from my gaddi the whole day," said a smiling shyamlal agarwal sitting is his first floor room. all his 9 employees took turns to sit at the window and watch the bouts throughout the afternoon. "arre babu i haven't moved a single sack of cement today. all my three trucks are lying here since afternoon. now i can't even find my labourers. all of them are somewhere near the akhra," said ganesh yadav, a contractor. yadav comes from siwan in bihar and he admitted that the exhilarating stuff on saturday had "brought back fond memories of home" where akhara's and pehlwans were plentiful, though watching beautiful 18-year-olds like deepika kaliraman or pampa das making mincemeat of their opponents had surely made his day.