Dying culture: Traditional sport’s popularity on the rocks

The sport has been practised in the region for centuries.

HARIPUR:

While stone lifting and similar sports in Europe, especially Scotland, have been  revived through their integration into World’s Strongest Man competitions, the traditional sport of stone lifting, popular since centuries, is in decline in Hazara due to lack of support from the government.

The watee (oval) and budkar (rectangular) stones are chiselled till the surfaces become smooth, whose weight ranges between 50 to 300 kilogrammes (kgs). A handle is also carved on the budkars to make them easier to lift, while the watees are carved without a handle and their surface is made so smooth that lifters often drop them.

Stone lifters are also trained to stand on their feet while lifting the stone.

A contestant is only declared a winner when he stands on the ground carrying the required weight he challenges to lift, and throw the stone back with a jerk after holding it high in the air.

“Watee lifting is just like weight lifting. It is different in a sense that watee is made of stone while iron weights are used in the other,” said Ayub Khan, a watee player.

According to Khan, stone lifting is a centuries’ old tradition in Hazara which is also popular in some parts of Punjab.

Every year, a contest is held in which men prove their brawn and exhibit their skill.

Asad Niaz, another watee player from Gangu village near Taxila told The Express Tribune that he inherited the skill from his forefathers, but with the passage of time the traditional sport is disappearing from the region due to the government’s lack of interest.

Niaz believes that it is imperative to preserve the legacy of stone lifting, for which Hazara is widely known.

“The youth in Hazara can also be deterred from engaging in harmful activities if we promote sports and traditional games,” he remarked. Mushtaq Khan, another stone lifter, claims that the district administration has the funds to promote local sports, however, most of the funds are allocated for cricket, due to which other sports are neglected.

Regardless of all the obstructions, players from Khanpur and Gangu still arrange the annual competition to keep the tradition alive.

A few weeks back, the competition was held in Gangu Bahadur near Khanpur, where lifters displayed their talent.

Asad Niaz Gujjar from Gangu Bahadur team won the tournament by lifting a 138 kg stone. He was also awarded a trophy and Rs25,000. Malik Mushtaq and Imran Khan lifted equal weights of 116 kgs, while Raja Waqas lifted a 98kg stone. The winners were given prizes.

In the relatively lucrative World’s Strongest Man competition, a similar sport practiced in Scotland, five heavy round stones are carried from one platform to another. This has now become the final stage of the competition, signifying the difficulty and skilled required in performing the task. Similar events could be arranged for young sportsmen in Hazara.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2011.