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This time Ashok and my self were the happy witness of this
beautiful traditional folk game called cattle raiding. Though we
heard a lot about this sports i had no opportunity or even the knowledge of
where it would be held and at what time and day. When Venkappa Malkappa
Doodihalli a farmer from the far distant of Haveri-Chikkerror called me over a
phone and invited to him join the cattle racing sports i was just thrilled and
booked my date exclusively for that day. When i requested Ashok to join me he just went to the extent of
booking the railway tickets and off course we were on right schedule
as when we reached Hirekkeroor where Venkappa and other farmer
friends received us joyfully and took to Chikkeroor. We
were served with warm water to wash hands and legs as custom. Around five to
six youths joined us and chatted for a while on cattle racing, cattle breeds,
bull fighters etc., One of them showed us some of the accessories including
T-shirts of their team named after their Bull – “Chikkeri Don” that would be
used in decorating themselves and the bull for tomorrow games show. For them
cattle sports was meant to show of their skills in maintaining
the best breed of cattle, their vallurness and winning the race. Later in
the evening we were served Kadak Roti, Curds, Ghee, Sabji,Rice, Dal and Payasam
(A kind of sweet made of milk, sugar and rice noodles). Then
we ourselves retired to our bed and had "Various
sounds" sleep.
On next day in the dawn the six and half feet tall beast
named Chikerror Don got his cold shower with the help of Venkappa and his
assitents. Then he was fed with paddy
grass. Venkamma wife of Venkappa brought him his porridge made of wide variety
of cereals, pulses with proper mixture of rice and wheat brawn and marinated
overnight with dash of salt and local Jaggery. He relished it till the vessel
bounced out of the stable. As soon as sun was rising on the horizon of the far
distant temple of Chikkerooru the boy from the venkappa house came out with
Vibhuti and litted insane sticks. He smeared his Don with Vibhuti on his horns, forehead, foot and back. Though the
scent of the insane stick was irritative to the Don he tried not to shy away
from the boys loving touch while he was offering the prayers to him....Don knew
that it was not just an a another usual day of his life, for he had a special
massage on previous day with rough brush and his horn was sharpened to piercing
point with a glittering knife. This made him quiet aggressive because of the
pain. This was his sixth year of cattle racing in Chikkeroor and was proud
bullock of Venkappa by winning him several compitation of cattle race. As soon
as he was decorated with paint, cloth and other accessories he was brought in
front of the home where Venkappa and his wife offered him prayers by litting
camphor on Asisana water. Venkappa’s wife wished him a very good luck and told
him to win the race and come back.
This Cattle sport which is so ancient is also
still found happening widely in remote places of rural India in
different forms. The place which event took place was at Ginivalla village. A remote village situated near Chikkeroor
of the Haveri district. Somewhere in
the remote corner of western Deccan region of Karnataka, which meets Western
Ghats foot hills? Lingayats, Banjaaras, Muslims and Vaddas are the major settled
people. Most of their occupation was Agriculture. Paddy, Cotton, Jower and
Maize are the basic crops which they are presently growing. Near and
Far distance i could find few Coconut and Aracnut grooves. Otherwise
the landscape was so vast and Dry cultivated. And also wildlife like
Blackbuck offten shared this space by raiding in herds during cotton growing
seasons. Ashok took few pictures of birds and trees during his early morning
walk. He was wondering and said that birds hear are not afraid of human closure
probably people heare are not disturbing their presence.
As soon i reached the Ginivalla Village i saw large crowd on and
sides of the race track. The race track which was on a down hill road, was choosen by the COMMITTEE. i.e organisers whom most of them
were standing in the mids of the crowd. I could recognize them only
by their paper badges hanging on their left side of the chest. Where other
main Committee people were mounted on
the high platform on one side of the track where more than fourty tractor tailors were tagged each other
in Que. On the other side of the track was enclosed by strong fence was
built with bamboo and other pols and chemeflasosed it with green leaves of
Mango, Cassia, and other tree species which were found far distant of the
tracks. Mainly male crowed assembled on both side of the track. I saw a group
of five women who have mounted on the qued trilers. Hundreds of bull fighter
were seen on the track and they were ready to catch the bull. One of the
Committee member was shouting at crowd Oye!! Hori bitta!!! Hori bitta!!! over
microphone, which means the bull was left on run in the track. Venkappa
informed us that this is the 1st round, where the Bull will be made
run through this track just to show it the path where to start and end it. To
end ?!! I said. Yes it will just join one of us standing here as soon as the
given running track completed. But not every ones’s bull will be same, some of
the bull have ran back to their home or into the nearby fields. Usually they
are disqualified from the game said venkappa. 
More than 100’s of cattle were seen running on the downhill
trail track of Ginivalla Cattle race, by taking their turn with guidance of the
owner for another One and Half hour. It appeared that some of the cattle breed
of Amrithmahl and Dyavni were specially bred for their fitness to participate
in these sports. They were decorated with pink colour on their back, Mask of black woolen roaps were tied around
their face, tilak marks on their forehead to indicate valourness or a black
cloth doll was tied up to avoid evil eyes. Colour tapes were tied to the horns
and some of them had lemon stuck into their horn tip which was previously
sharpened. Some of them were decorated with liitle saffron flags, or with
number of balloons to adore the bulls. The cloth of different colours were tied
to both of their front leg looked like a kind of buffoons trousers. And some
cloth stitched out of woolly cloth resembled black bear and designs of the
cloth were purely bit of wild imaginations of character of their cattle brought
into realization. 
Though this Bull baiting/racing/ fighting was organized from the time of Dipavalii festival to Samkrati the sports which had folk character did not have any religious significance in this area. I guess earlier days these sports wrere conducted to win the girl with in the tribe or to demonstrate valournes in bull taming or to show their best cattle breed. Now I could not understand that why this event is done during the times of Dipavalli in theses region. My guess was that this sports in this region was mainly organised by Banjaaras. The nomadic tribes of northers origin, where they would return to their natvie or sttled place after year long traveling across the state or country and conducted this sports to win their braid or just as a festival game where nothing seemesed to be a religious activity. Now as time pass on this ancient sports has bee observed by various communities. The price for the captor has been changed to some gadgets. At Ginivalla the particpents were mostly from Banjaaras, Lingayats, Muslims and Vadda communities. The animals were bulls of various native breeds of cattles across maidans and western ghats namely Amruthmahl, Hallikar, Killari, Devani, Malnad gidda and other native breeds. Each breed of beasts were distinct from another and of various age group and colours. Few of them participating in these games for last six years and champions in different event held in different areas.
It was real race time, when I heard the rise of Drum sounds
and the voice of crowd reached the height of skye. The hundreds of young men
who have already leaped into the enclosed reace track were after the bull. The
dust was fumed out of the crowd. With no time an Hallikar bull with red paint
breaked and jumped out of the crowd on the race track and ran another half
kilometer whom chased by his only owner. The annoyed bulls with lowered heads
kept charging wildly in to the midst of the crowd. Most of the cattle had
single goal that to run away as far as possible out of the crowd without
getting caught by threatening the crowd or fist running or by loosing the
garland of copra to the captor.
Few of them just run away back to the starting
point due to wrong coordination of the bull team members namely Leader, Guider
and Cheer leaders. Leader usually runs before the bull and carried name of the
bull or the team name on a holder held up heigh. Guider’s will hold control of the
bull till it gets wild and starts running. And cheer leaders usually make
annoying sound whiling hopping and jumping behind the bull, due to this either
bull gets scared or wild and starts running into the mids of the crowd. The youths among the crowds used quiet funny and
interesting techniques to stop the running bulls. They raised their hands up
high and started dancing in the way of the bull’s pursuit of escape or as a
team they would straight away jumped on the way of the Bull only to end with few
hurts. Some of them they just hoped on their shoulder, or hunged themselves as
a garland on the neck of the bull and charged the bull by catching its ear and
quench it to capture.
While witnessing and capturing this freaky show of this bull biting continued, Ashok and myself managed to quench our thirst with child Dixie cola nearby petty shop and Committee people mounted on the heigh platform quenched their thirst with Knock-out Beer in a steel glass and kept shouting over microphone Hori bitta..!! bitta..!!
Manohar Patel on 22 Dec 2012.
