Wrestling has been plagued with controversy and scandal for the whole of last year. It has been hogging prime time and space in the media. The dismal performance of 1 gold, 1 silver, and 1 bronze at the recently concluded Asian Games, in which India achieved a total of 107 medals, speaks volumes about the effect it has had on our grapplers representing the country.

What Is Wrestling?

Wrestling, with the possible exception of athletes, is the oldest sport. In this sport, the individual grappler’s aim is to throw, hold the opponent down, or outscore the other during a match. Wrestling made its Olympic descent in 1896 at Athens. There are two types of wrestling at the Olympics — Freestyle and Greco-Roman.

The grappler submits to fight for three rounds under specified rules and regulations and agrees to be judged by a panel of judges. The rules for both forms are almost identical, except that in Greco-Roman, a grappler is not allowed to attack the opponent below the waist or use his own leg to execute a hold.

The Evolution of Wrestling as a Sport

In the seventh century, wrestler Ramdas inspired Hindus to take up wrestling as an activity in homage to Hanuman, the god of strength and valour. It is said that every Maharashtrian boy knows wrestling. And during this period, women wrestlers travelled the country, taking on all comers, too. The Peshwas support solidified its existence and strengthened its growth.

Subscribe to The Teenager Today print / digital editions to read the full article.

The post Wrestling appeared first on The Teenager Today.

RELIANCE HOME VIDEO (2 discs), Rs 499

Cast: Aamir Khan, Fatima Sana Sheikh, Sanya Malhotra, Sakshi Tanwar, Girish Kulkarni
Director: Nitesh Tiwari

In the last few years we have seen a stream of Hindi sports dramas from Aamir’s super-hit Lagaan, Iqbal, and Chak De, to recent favourites like Bhaag Mikha Bhaag, Mary Kom, Sultan, MSD The Untold Story and Sachin: A Billion Dreams.

After Lagaan, this is probably Aamir’s best work that too with a relatively new support cast, but under his guidance, newcomers Fatima Sana Sheikh and Sanya Malhotra give outstanding performances. Aamir believes that you don’t need kickass music, item numbers and sleaze to pull over a film; what you do need is a tight plot and good screenplay to make an impact on the audience.

Dangal (‘wrestling’), is based on the real-life story of ex-wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat played by Aamir. Due to financial constraints, Phogat could never accomplish his dream of competing for his country and winning a gold medal in wrestling. He consoles himself with the belief that maybe his son will one day realize his dream. However, destiny has other plans. When he and his wife Daya (Sakshi Tanwar) are blessed with four children, all girls, Phogat loses hope of ever realizing that dream. When one day his daughters, 14-year-old Geeta (Fatima Sana Sheikh) and 12-year-old Babita (Sanya Malhotra), bash up the neighbourhood boys for teasing them, he doesn’t reprimand them; instead he asks them how they did it. When they recount their experience, he realizes that they have what it takes to be world-class wrestlers. From then on, Phogat takes all the criticism from the village elders, society, lack of money, apathy from officials and much more, to fulfil one goal, India winning gold internationally. For those who may not know, Geeta was India’s first female wrestler to win at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, winning a gold medal (55 kg), while her sister Babita won silver (51 kg).

The DVD comes in a two-disc edition; Disc One contains the main feature film, and holds an audio description for the hearing impaired. Disc Two has Special Features from the making of the film to some interesting tidbits on Khan’s transformative weight gain and loss journey in Fat to Fit. His journey to first add kilos to portray the older version of his character, forming a major part of the film, and then lose all that weight to play the younger version of the wrestler, is interesting and amusing. Making of the Phogat Girls follows the wrestling training of Fatima, Sanya and Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar, while Aamir’s tryst with the sport is detailed in a separate featurette.

Also enclosed is a leaflet of Iconic Moments from the film in a picture format.

The post Dangal appeared first on The Teenager Today.