It's half past seven on a bitterly cold Monday evening in Jaipur. Hundreds of people, wrapped up in their puffiest jackets and snuggest beanies, make a beeline along the periphery of the iconic Sawai Mansingh Stadium. And in true Jaipur style, the entire area is lit with pink bulbs - this is the 'Pink City' after all.
Among the crowd are the kabaddi fanatics, animatedly discussing how the teams could shape up today. Then there are families with kids in tow, out to make the most of a public holiday. And some of the attendees just happened to be there by chance and had no idea of the occasion: the 1000th game of the Pro Kabaddi League.
Gillian and Bethany, an English mother-daughter duo travelling through India, learnt about the game after seeing a hoarding on their way into the city from the airport. "We initially thought it was a football match, but then we looked it up and it looked somewhat like rugby, and we thought why not go watch it," says Gillian, while fixing the pink Jaipur Pink Panthers (JPP) cap she just bought. It was their first time attending a kabaddi game and it so happened to be a landmark day. As Bethany put it, "Guess we couldn't have come on a better day!"
It's around 8pm on a bitterly cold evening in Jaipur. Around 200 people, including kids sat stop their parents' shoulders, throng to Jaipur's Sawai Mansingh Stadium.
The occasion? To watch the 1000th @ProKabaddi game :")#ProKabaddi | #PKLSeason10 pic.twitter.com/yLH6ywubKc
- Shyam Vasudevan (@JesuisShyam) January 15, 2024
At the other end of the fan spectrum is Omesh Maharshi. "I have been watching [PKL, and JPP] since 2014," he says. "I was in the stadium [back] then and I am here today. I was here when [the Pink Panthers] won the title and even went to the hotel to celebrate with the team. I diligently follow all the games."
At one of the other entry gates, beside a huge installation of the iconic Hawa Mahal, are a bunch of young boys going "live" from their social media accounts. They were among the lucky ones to score tickets for the game and did not want their friends at home to feel left out.
Within the icy confines of the stadium, meanwhile, were two friends battling out on the mat in that 1000th match: Bengal Warriors captain Maninder Singh and Bengaluru Bulls' powerhouse Ran Singh. Maninder has credited Ran for making him the player he is...and it was rather amusing that Maninder's first point of the game came off his mentor.
Maninder is the only raider who played in the first season of PKL to also be playing now, and it was only fitting that he finished on the winning side in the 1000th game. And watching from the sidelines were five legends of the game - Anup Kumar, Ajay Thakur, Dharmraj Cheralathan, Manjeet Chhilar and Rishank Devadiga - who were felicitated with a gold coin before the game.
The stadium DJ warmed up the capacity crowd with a few bass-thumping songs, including the uber popular 'Ishq tera tadpave [Oh ho ho ho]' track by Sukhbir. The fans were in for a mini dance party, including the three Swedish tourists - Aino, Sam, and Jackie - who happened to see a kabaddi team in their hotel, googled the sport and headed to the stadium.
Ahead of the second match, the decibel levels went through the roof as the Pink Panthers, the sons of the soil, made their entrance. Their match against U Mumba was symbolic in many ways - the first-ever PKL game on July 26, 2014, was between these two teams. The same two teams played the first-ever PKL final on August 31, 2014.
As fate [or scheduling] would have it, it was these two teams that fought it out in the 1001st PKL game, marking the start of a new era... an era that was ushered in by a triumph for the Pink Panthers.