CHAKWAL: For Altaf Hussain Hammar, it was another day of pride and ecstasy, as his famous pair of bulls – Roos and German – stole the show at the ‘Jalsa’ event at the annual ‘Mela Karsal’, Chakwal’s most famous annual cultural carnival. The event concluded on Thursday, after entertaining locals and visitors for four days.

Although Kabaddi and volleyball events gathered a large audience, it was the Jalsa – Chakwal’s most cherished sport – that pulled an overwhelming crowd from multiple villages across the district. The roads leading to the host village of Karsal were packed with incoming traffic on Wednesday, as people thronged to witness the sporting event.

The word Jalsa literally means “an assembly or large gathering”, but in Chakwal the word refers to the sport involving bulls of Dhanni breed.

For the sport, a pair of bulls of is yoked together, while two people pull the ropes tied to the bulls.

A third person stands on the yoke to bury an attached wooden plank (called Karah) to ground. This Karah gathers the soil and increases in weight as it moves across the soft ground.

The competition is entirely judged by the audience, without a presence of a referee. The spectators decide the winner based on the bulls’ balanced stride while pulling the increasing weight of the Karah.

At Mela Karsal, more than 170 pairs of bulls participated in the Jalsa, however, Altaf Hussain Hammar’s bulls won the sport. The bulls, known as Roos and German, are famous throughout the district for wining many competitions since some time.

“Although a few other bulls performed well, but Roos and German are the undisputed kings in the district,” commented Chaudhry Akseer, a Jalsa expert, from Munday village.

Mr Hammar, who belongs to Murid village, told Dawn that he was recently offered a hefty amount of Rs5 million for each bull, but he refused to sell his animals. “I would never sell my bulls, they are my pride and have made me famous across the district,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2014