‘Game of Kings’: Shandur polo festival kicks off amid fanfare

Local culture of Chitral, Gilgit-Baltistan depicted at the festive event graced by dignitaries

CHITRAL: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Caretaker Chief Minister Justice (retd) Dost Muhammad Khan Saturday morning inaugurated Shandur Polo Festival being played at the world's highest polo ground at Shandur in District Chitral.

German Ambassador Martin Kobler, German Embassy Youth Ambassador Marion Pfennigs, , Provincial Caretaker Minister for Sports, Tourism Rashid Khan, Chitral Deputy Commissioner Khursheed Khan, Frontier Corps Col Saqib, G-B Sports Secretary Waqar Ali Khan, Commandant Chitral Scouts Col Moinuddin, District Police Officer Mansoor Aman and government representatives of Gilgit-Baltistan were also present on this occasion.



Soon after the inauguration, the Chitral Laspur team defeated Bander Polo team of Gilgit-Baltistan by 5-1 in a thrilling match while in the second match Sub-Division Mastooj Chitral defeated Yaseen of Gilgit-Baltistan by 8-5 in another thrilling match.

Speaking on this occasion, Caretaker CM Dost Muhammad Khan announced Rs1 million for the winning team, Rs0.7 million for the runners-up team and Rs0.5 million for the third position team.

He also announced Rs0.1 million for the kids of FC Public School who presented a national song. A large number of foreign and domestic tourists and visitors turned up to enjoy and experience the battle between the true warriors on the world's highest polo ground in Shandur. The polo teams of Chitral, Gilgit, Laspur and Ghizer are participating in the polo tournament which according to a British poet is: “While others may play at other things – the king of the games is the game of kings.”

The Laspur polo team faced Ghizer on the first day of the gala while Chitral-B and Gilgit-B teams will face-off on the second day. This year the festival is being organised on its actual date as for a couple of years the annual three-day event could not be held on the old dates due to Ramazan.

The game of polo is now famous internationally   and every year thousands of visitors and tourists from across the world come to Chitral to watch the grand gala. Besides other arrangements, the Tourism Department has also arranged transport service from Chitral to Shandur to facilitate the visitors.



The local cultures including music and Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan's performing art are also part of the festival to put on display. A tent village has been set up for providing boarding and lodging facilities to both foreign and domestic tourists. Most of the visitors were also complaining that there were no washrooms facilities and the washrooms setup by the organisers was only meant for VVIPs. Besides polo, there are numbers of other programmes  to showcase work of local artisans and cultural nights during the festival.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2018.