Mangalore: The “Kambala” or trained Buffaloes (single and double on a yoke) goes back to several centuries in Kadri at Mangalore where a whole road is named after it and concretized recently. Buffalo pairs come from talukas and country houses (Guthu) which breed then round the year and train them to run hard in slushy and muddied fields at the back of Kadri temple.
The races are an annual affair along with men’s, women’s 100 metes running and tug-of-war on strong ropes to begin with. The Kambala races are held normally after lunch. The Kadri Kambala is well known as ‘Devara’ (gods own) Buffalo race. Regions such as Mulky, Moodabidri and Panjikallu rural areas. The track on which they run these races were named after Mahendra and Goraksha Natha who started the nine Gurus tradition in Mangalore.
Traditional filed games such as ‘Kesaru Gadde’ Ota (running in slushy fields), Hagga Jaggata (tag of war in ropes), berichend and tappangai peculiar to Tulunadu, precedes the main Kambala.
The gold medal was awarded to buffaloes belonging to Erimaru Gopalkrishna of Hosabettu in Moodabidri, on the timber plate category. Brand seals Jaya Shetty stood on the plate driving the winner buffaloes. Silver medal went to buffaloes of William M. Rodrigues of Panji Kallu, driven by Chandrashekhar.
In the minor category of wooden plates, gold medal was won by buffaloes from Mundkur Hosamane belonging to Yatish Shetty and driven by Attur Satish Salian. The second place (silver) went to Poyyalu Babu Shetty of Kuloor in Manjeshwar, driven by B. Jaya Shetty.
In the third “Karahalage” (wooden stand of war) category, Guruvappa Pujary of Gurupura won the gold medal for his “prestigious” buffaloes driven by Puttur Naranappa Salian. In all, 13 pairs of home grown buffaloes participated in 2010.
The afternoon session of Kadri kambala races was inaugurated y Dharmadarshi Harikrishna Punarooru who explained the significance of such folk arts in the life of rural landlords, farmers and agricultural labourers. He referred to Yakshagana (open drama / music events) and Kolikatta (cock fights) in olden days. The govt, is encouraging Yaksha gana, but Kambala as rural sport appears to be hard hit, he felt.
Dinesh Gollerkeri, secretary of Reception committee also expressed the view that holding such races of Kambala in wet muddy fields was becoming a hard task but it had survived the ages as a novelty and entertaining sport of Dk dt.
Devadas Kapikkad a Tulu dramatist and artiste, Pradeep Kalkura, J.S Shenoy Syndicate Bank Bailameginamane Nagaraja Shetty, Kadri Navneetha Shetty whose illustrated book on the historic annual event of centuries was released on Sunday and Rajayogi Sandhyanathji of Kadri Yogishwara Matt, among other several dignitaries were present.

More photos