It’s stupid how I actually planned to leave half way through this. The first thing I’m told at Alanganallur is that once I’m there for the bullfight, there’s no leaving. As I look in horror at a guy sharpening his bull’s horn with obvious delight, I’m reassured by my man Friday (every tourist within 10 inches of a rampant bull must have one) that all the exit restrictions are placed so that a clueless stroller doesn’t get in the way of a bull running wild in the village. “There are no rules in this game, you see,” he says, “The bull can be anywhere, and it can think anyone is the bull-tamer.”
So this is what India’s own bullfight is about: a thousand mad bulls, more than 10,000 people packed in the backyard of a small village temple, and no rules. One by one, bulls are let loose into an arena full of unarmed bullfighters. It used to be a one-man-to-one-bull game, and even today only one man can tame each animal. Not kill, just hang on to the hump for 50m in the crowd as the bull bucks and twists to throw him off. But in people’s drunken blind bravery, the bulls don’t have it easy. Their tails are bitten, eyes poked, their stomachs prodded with sticks. But after watching for a while, I realise that the bulls are the ones that are less physically hurt than the hundreds that lie in the hospital for weeks after this day. They — the bulls and the tamers — are reared and trained for just that. Safe? No. Increasingly attracting tourists? Yes.
This bull taming, jallikattu, is a centuries-old tradition in Alanganallur, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu. A toothless old man with a thigh full of proud scars tells me it all started when small pox affected the village ages ago. People prayed for a cure, and offered this game as “blood sacrifice”. So if even a year goes by without a drop of blood smearing the village earth, he says the local goddess will make sure an epidemic hits the village. “Of course, these days, there’s no small pox,” he adds, “so maybe cholera will come.” So abidingly every year, on January 16, jallikattu brings out the wild.