The Great Gama Pahelwan !

Ghulam Muhammad, also known as The ‘Great Gama’ and Gama Pehalwan was probably the greatest wrestler to ever walk the surface of the earth. With an undefeated career spanning over five decades, the legend of Gama Pehalwan was built in the mud pits and akharas of pre-independence rural India. Such was his fame and popularity that even Bruce Lee drew inspiration from him.

Accordig to Hindustan Times, actor-filmmaker Parmeet Sethi is directing a biopic on Gama Pehalwan featuring John Abraham. Gama remains a legendary sports champion from pre-Independence India and an icon of our struggle against colonialism.

Born in Amritsar in 1878, Gama was awarded the World Heavyweight title in 1910 after he defeated international wrestlers in London. Legend has it, that he once lifted a stone weighing over 1,200 kilograms and left the audience of Baroda gasping. The stone is now preserved in the Baroda Museum, as reported by the Times of India.

Training and diet

 

Gama’s daily training consisted of grappling with forty of his fellow wrestlers in the court. He used to do five thousand Baithaks (Hindu squats) and three thousand Dands (Hindu pushups).^[2] Gama’s daily diet was 3 gallons (10.5 liters) of milk,six desi chickens^{[2] and} a pound and a half of crushed almond paste made into a tonic drink along with fruit juice and other ingredients to promote good digestion. This high protein and high energy diet helped him accumulate muscle mass.

Career

The Great Gama won his first competition when he was around ten in Jodhpur which left even the Maharaja of Jodhpur mesmerised. But his formal inception into the world of wrestling came in 1895 when he wrestled against the then Rustam-e-Hind or “The Indian Wrestling Champion”, Raheem Baksh Sultaniwala. The 5’7’’ Gama looked like a midget in front of the 7 footer Raheem Baksh, but our David held on to a draw against the Goliath, which drew plaudits from wrestling aficionados all over the province.

 


























In the years that followed, Gama shattered the Indian wrestlers one by one in the ring. He defeated all the behemoths of the day including Ghulam Mohiuddin of Datia in 1898, Partab Singh from Bhopal in 1902, Ali Baba Sain of Indore in 1904 and Hasan Baksh of Multan in 1907. The only wrestler who could withstand the hurricane that was Gama was none other than his past rival Raheem Baksh. After their 1895 match, these two wrestlers met twice before Gama’s subsequent tour to London in 1910, but all the three bouts ended in closely contested draws.

Death