IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE GREAT GAMA PEHELWAN. Born-1880 Great legendary wrestler of Pakistan Gama (Ghulam Muhammad) was 5.7 feet tall and 260 pounds in weight. Gama’s daily training, which in maturity consisted of grappling with forty of his fellow wrestlers in the court. Five thousand bethaks (squats) and three thousand dands (push ups). He lifted 1200 kg stone at the age of 22. The stone that has now been kept at Baroda Museum in Sayajibaug is two-and-a-half feet in height and has text inscribed on it. The text says that the stone was lifted by Ghulam Mohammed on December 23, 1902. Gama had visited the then Baroda state to attend a wrestling competition when he achieved the feat. Here, one can also see a doughnut shaped exercising apparatus weighing a solid 95 kgs — named "HASS" or Disk belonging to the legendary Gama Pehelwan who used it for squats. Gama’s daily diet was six chickens or an extract of eleven pounds of mutton mixed with a quarter pound of clarified butter, ten liters of milk, 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. The Great Gama inspired the design and concept for the character Darun Mister, appearing in the "Street Fighter EX" video game series. The character bears a strong physical resemblance to that of Gama. The Great Gama appears as a character in the video game "Shadow Hearts: Covenant" and in the Japanese comic book "Tiger Mask". THE BITTER LAST DAYS His last years were troubled. He had five sons and four daughters, but all the sons died young. In 1945, Jalaluddin, his last son, died aged just thirteen, and Gama was so heartbroken that for awhile he lost the power of speech. In 1947, like millions of others, he was caught up in the bloody partition of India and Pakistan, losing most of the wealth and property that he had accumulated in his long wrestling career. Over the next few years he had to sell six of his seven silver victory maces. In 1951, apparently, he wrote to his old opponent Stanislaus Zbyszko about the possibility of staging international wrestling matches. Nothing came of that, but in the same year, in Karachi he took out a loan from the Refugee Rehabilitation finance corporation to buy a bus and set up the "Gama Transport Service." The company struggled for a couple years before he gave it up and returned to Lahore. A wrestling exhibition tour of Kenya and Uganda with Imam Bux in 1953 was financially unrewarding and had to be cut short when the 73-year-old Gama took ill and began spitting blood. In 1955 he issued a final, sad challenge to an indifferent world, saying that he would wrestle anyone, anywhere, at any time. In the same year the government of Punjab gave him some land to support himself, his wife, and their two unmarried daughters, and he had the first of his heart attacks. Three more followed, and the cost of treatment for his heart, high blood pressure, and asthma reduced him almost to penury. An industrialist, C.D. Birla, heard about Gama’s plight and gave him a grant of 2,000 rupees and a pension of 300 rupees a month for a year. Others rallied round. The West Pakistan Health Minister had Gama admitted to the Mayo Hospital at public expense, and other government departments and supporters helped. You like to think that after all his troubles, the old champion had some small measure of rest and comfort in his last few years. Longtime wrestling fan Walter Steinhilber wrote about his 1960 trip to India and Pakistan, and his meeting with Gama in Strength and Health, March 1961. The old wrestler was then a patient at the Mayo Hospital in Lahore. "The Chief Physician," wrote Steinhilber: led the way through what seemed miles of antiseptic-reeking corridors – ward after ward. At last we were ushered into a cold, dark and dank cot-crowded room. And here, wrapped in a blanket, squatting on his high hospital bed, I found the ‘Great Gama’ in the flesh. What flesh there was left was arthritis-racked. In his hospital wardrobe and a woollen scarf wrapped as a turban, there was little to remind one that here, as a fact, was one of the giants of all time… The Indian wrestler who had dispatched the great Zbyszko in a matter of minutes… whose majestic pose, carrying the mace of mastery, left one awestruck. Through an interpreter Steinhilber was told about Gama’s famous bouts with Zbyszko and others. But it seems that Gama himself was weak and confused: "The details and records," wrote Walter Steinhilber, "have become clouded by time and faltering memory… Only in the handshake could I detect the power that had once resided in this now withering hulk." The visit was quite a formal occasion, since Steinhilber was accompanied by a military attaché and other VIPs. Photos were taken and then the attaché presented the old champion with baskets of fruit and flowers and a cheque for 1,200 rupees, worth about $400 then, apparently. As he took the gifts, Gama’s eyes were filled with tears. When he returned home, Walter Steinhilber wrote to Pakistan for copies of the photos. The copies arrived with a note from the Director of Public Relations. It simply read: "Gama died 5/22/60. With the passing of this man ends an epic."
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 17:55:42 +0000
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