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Ringside At The Uldha Cockfight

Cockfight. Dusty. Cycles in hundreds. They lie haphazardly on the ground, not standing, or leaning, as you might expect. Roosters tied to each one, or to a stake. Lots of cock-a-doodle-doing. Sun setting. Long shadows. Huge crowd, atmosphere of a village fair, vendors of funny-looking edibles everywhere. Large enclosure, open-air, fenced with bamboo, lined with hundreds of onlookers. Announcements of prizes and so on blare forth on the PA system. Man with an enormous drum, bangs it slowly. On this Tuesday evening, this is Uldha in West Bengal's Purulia district. Transformed into a loud, dusty, festive cockfight mela.

Off in one corner, roosters ready to fight are on display. Crowing nonstop, they stand there tall, proud and foolish, one leg tied to a brick, a stone, a cycle, whatever will keep them from flapping off to pick fights. Also tied to the leg, or the stone, is a small chit of paper with the owner's name and a price. That's the amount the owner is willing to pay whoever beats his champion in a fair fight. I walk around, checking the chits. 31 rupees. 51 rupees. The highest price, attached to a puzzlingly scrawny white bird, is 151 rupees. Must make up for its nondescript looks, I suppose, with a fierce aggression in battle. Or this is an unduly optimistic owner.

The Uldha event looks large to me, but I learn it is not particularly large by district standards. One held recently at a "chauraha" (road crossing) we had passed went on all day, and upwards of 150 cars had driven from all over the district to bring owners and birds to the fight. Bottles of whisky, radios, cycles and more were on offer as prizes. Yes, prizes. Not gambling, I was told repeatedly, but prizes.

And in the middle of all this, there is indeed some real gambling going on. Only, it is not on the cockfights. Bettors fling their bets -- currency notes rolled up tight to look like cigarettes, perhaps they're better flung that way -- at the Master of Ceremonies, indicating as they do so their choice of four colourful panels on a big sheet of cloth. Rolled up note is put on that panel. When all bets are in, the MC lifts another cloth to reveal 5 or 6 large cubes in a large basket. Not dice: these have, not dots, but some intricate drawings on their sides. How the drawings translate into panels, I don't know, but everybody else must. Because after each uncovering of the basket, some subset of the bettors clamours for their takings. Then the MC covers up the basket, waits for more cigaretted notes to come flying down.

The Kheria Sabars, the denotified tribe I have come to Purulia district to meet, are encouraged to raise roosters for these cockfights. At Rs 500 and up for a bird -- far more than the meat alone would fetch -- it is undoubtedly a sensible way to generate an income. So in this other corner, here the Sabars with their birds, come to fight. One is an instructor (Sabar, not the bird) at a school in the Sabar hamlet of Kuda I had visited yesterday: balding, one-legged with a crutch, a wide smile and the glint of the upcoming good fight in his eye. No, he did not lose his leg in a cockfight. They are here with some handsome birds indeed, but have not yet found good opponents for any of them. It's explained to me. Everyone is looking to match his bird against a slightly smaller, weaker one. In the end, this means that the bouts are between nearly identical birds. Of course, they will have their blades strapped on during the fight. So I cannot see how anything -- smaller, weaker, identical, whatever -- but blind luck decides the fights.

Roosters, I'm told, are naturally aggressive. Their owners feed their birds some kind of herb to make them even more so. The Sabar birds, I'm told, are healthier than the others because they are fed Becosules (Vitamin B and C capsules) every day. I make a mental note to resume my Becosules regimen when I return home. The herb, whatever it is, I will do without. The Sabars, I'm also told, get some training in veterinary practices from the nearby Paschim Banga Kheria Sabar Kalyan Samiti (West Bengal Kheria Sabar Welfare Organisation). Thus they know how to treat rooster wounds and illnesses, which means their roosters fight longer, last longer. Of course, they too will have their blades strapped on. So I still cannot see how anything -- Becosules, herbs, wounds treated, whatever -- but blind luck decides the fights.

And all over the area, there are men tying the vicious knives on the legs of their birds. Or untying them from birds come back from the ring. Either way, an intricate, slow process, done with the rooster's head and neck tucked firmly under an arm or knee, its legs held just so.

I look at the knives and despite myself, I can feel it. I look around and in the faces of the men -- only men, there's not a single woman here -- I can see it.

Blood lust.

To the good fight, then. Two at a time, men enter the enclosure, each holding a bird under his arm. Transferring them to their hands, they meet and "introduce" the birds to each other. Their beaks nearly touch. Then they put the birds down. Necks close to the ground, they eye each other warily. So do the roosters. No, really, the men also circle behind the roosters, egging them on, watching their moves closely.

With an angry ruffling of neck feathers, the birds explode up and into each other, feet aimed at each other. And of course, on those feet are those scythe-like blades, sharpened to a sunset gleam, sticking out a heart-stopping 3 inches from the birds' legs. So in that explosion, blood is inevitable, expected. I feel the blood lust. Sure enough, it is dripping from the first joining of the battle. They jump back, circle warily again, explode once more into that joint flurry of flapping feathers. I tremble with blood lust. The explosion happens 3 or 4 times. Until one bird sinks -- tired? weakened by the flowing blood? -- to the ground. Or it runs away. Often the men have to gingerly disentangle the wildly flapping birds -- who knows where, or what, those diabolical blades have got stuck into.

Sometimes the owner does not wait to get back to his little circle to remove the blade, he does it right there in the ring after the fight. He squats, puts his rooster on the ground, places his foot squarely on the bird's neck and carefully unties the string that holds the blade. Immobility, whether ensured this way or under an arm and knee, is important. Can't have the bird thrashing around, or there'd be more than avian blood spilled in the dust. Immobility is important.

Bout over. Birds bleeding into the ground. Birds that have lost, held by their legs, carried upside down, bleeding into the ground. Some are bleeding through their beaks, the crimson liquid running as from a tap, bleeding into the ground. I saw one owner holding his bird's feet, whapping the rooster's head on the ground. What was in his mind: disgust? anger? shame? Was this just the normal way to finish off the injured creature? But it was still flapping as he gave up the whapping and carried it off. Still bleeding into the ground.

Birds that win their bouts are carried out as they came in: tucked proudly, affectionately, under an arm. Often enough, they too are bleeding into the ground.

Dust laden, we left. As the sun sank lower still, it went on behind us in one great dusty cock-a-doodle-doing cacophony: the bleeding into the ground. I tried to stop shaking.

Tailpiece:

I am happy to see something I wrote a few weeks ago here so thoroughly vindicated. In my column "Made In Italy, But So What?", I said this:

So why the frenzied harping on [Sonia's foreign birth]? ... [I]t's that quick and easy route to patriotism, to being more Indian than the rest, that the BJP and friends trade so avidly in. ... Today, you show how Indian you are by demanding that we must be ruled only by Indians born in India.

After Messrs Pawar, Sangma and Anwar said just this about Sonia the other day, Kushabhau Thakre of the BJP was asked for his reaction. "I am happy," said Thakre, "that the dormant spirit of patriotism is slowly awakening in a few patriotic Congressmen."

Indeed. Men who were unpatriotic till last weekend are now patriots after all, simply by pronouncing the requisite mantra: "No one but an Indian born in India can be PM."

Mantras for patriotism. That's what we have sunk to.

I said I was happy. Actually I'm depressed.

Dilip D'Souza