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Besides the mainstream sports like cricket, hockey, and squash, a lot of other sports are also played all over Pakistan. These other games, which are equally popular, include tent pegging, volleyball, football, stone-lifting, staying underwater, cart race and dog races. Many different kinds of competitions and events are held at different fairs and village festivals and people flock to these local grand sporting events as keenly as the average sports fan anywhere in the world.
Among all the folk sports, the most thrilling and most adventurous is Tent Pegging because it is full of thrill and drama. Tent Pegging is played in teams as well as solo. It is one of the most popular equestrian sports and was particularly popular in the Indian sub-continent till the postwar period.
Although there is a difference of opinion as to how and where it started, it is almost certain that tent-pegging is a sport of Asian origin. One source dates it back to the invasion of India by Alexander the Great in 326 B.C. which lends credence to the belief that the sport originated in the North Western province of India and Afghanistan where Alexander had entered India. The cavalry soldiers of Alexander were believed to have used tent-pegging as a battle tactic against the elephants in the army of the Indian King Porus, who fought bravely against the invaders, lost the battle, but by virtue of his heroic demeanor, charmed Alexander to return Porus his kingdom and make him his friend. |
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There is also a belief that the sport originated with the horse-mounted soldiers charging enemy camps at the crack of dawn removing the pegs which held the tents in place, with the tips of their sharp spears. The Vice President of the Mudgeeraba Troop, Australia Arthur Domain, who is also training his officers for tent pegging explains that tent pegging is actually a sport, "It came about from the Pakistani and Indian armies when they had time on their hands up on the borders; to break the boredom, they invented the sport we now call tent pegging. In the early days they used the wooden pegs that they used to drive in the ground to hold the tents up; and then the other forms of the sport evolved from that. It just gives the riders good hand-eye coordination and makes them better horsemen."
But most equestrian sports authorities are of the opinion that tent-pegging originated in India in the middle ages in the battle fields as a tactic used by the horsed cavalry against elephant mounted troops. The soldiers discovered that the best way to make the elephants ineffective was to attack them on their toe nails with sharp spears from the back of a galloping horse. In order to perfect this technique, the cavalry started the practice of tent-pegging which eventually turned into the modern sport. |
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Regardless of its exact origin, tent-pegging is now a popular equestrian sport in many countries around the world. These days the rider uses either a lance or a sword and charges at a full gallop across the arena and attempts to pick up the wooden/cardboard pegs firmly wedged in the ground. This can be done individually or in a team.
Though the tent pegging events are held all over the year in Pakistan, the biggest event has been the Horse & Cattle Show held annually at the Fortress Stadium in Lahore. The tent pegging competition at the Horse & Cattle Show is one of the biggest competitions held at a national level.
Besides Lahore, the biggest and most prestigious tent pegging tournament is held every year in Kanjwani, a village near Faisalabad, where probably the largest assortment of tent peggers competes for honour and cash prizes every October. Not only do they perform their best in the tent pegging but they do it in a gloriously stylish way. The grace of a tent pegger and his horse is matchless. The colors they wear, the way they bind turbans on their heads, and the spears they carry on horsebacks...everything is picture perfect! |
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The tent pegging event photographed for this article was held in Shiraza Patan, a village some few kilometers away from Kanjwani, where around 25 teams from all over Punjab participated in a three day tournament. Up to 200 players from 25 tent pegging clubs in Punjab including Rai Ahmad Khan Shaheed Tent Pegging Club Faisalabad, Mehr Muhammad Ali Terhana Tent Pegging Club of Pakistan, Punjab Tent Pegging Club of Pakistan, Muhammadi Haideri Sultania Shaheen Club, Muhammadi Haideri Bhutta Tent Pegging Club, Muhammadi Haideri Qalanderiya Rani Tent Pegging Club of Pakistan, Muhammadi Haideri Malik Muhammad Abdullah Club, Muhammadi Haideri Ranjha Tent Club of Pakistan and Chatha and Virk Tent Pegging Clubs Gujranwala took part in the competition. A large number of people from various places came to see the tent pegging competition.
Photos by Yasir Nisar
www.flickr.com/photos/yasirnisar
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