I just entered a small village and literally everyone excited and people were running busy for preparation. A big queue of buffaloes (He) were next to the village temple to take blesses and register their name for this wonderful event.

Local drums & bugles were started with all energy and here I’m in a small village far west in Karnataka. Chief of 32 villages finally declared event open after performing Pooja in a small village temple, who is known as “ARASUR” and he cannot see this event and have to away from ground till the race is over. Only a designated family elder can be ARASUR and it is traditionally selected from the same family.

Kambala is traditionally a very simple sport which provides much-needed entertainment to the village people. The ‘track’ used for Kambala is a paddy field filled with slush and mud. The contest generally takes place between two pairs of buffaloes, each pair raced in wet rice fields, controlled by a whip-lashing farmer. In olden days, the winning pair of buffaloes was rewarded with coconuts and a bunch of plantains and nowadays, gold coins, silver coins are given in some competitions, cash award is also in vogue. Some organising committees award eight grams gold coin as a first prize. The event will continue throughout the day and late evenings depends on participants.

These are not regular buffaloes, but they are developed for this purpose only and carefully fed and some owners of the Buffaloes have even built a separate swimming pool for competing buffaloes and air conditioners too.