Namakkal: In an enterprising bid to counter the traditional gender bias that only young, muscular males could take to 'jallikattu' events as bull-tamers that kept out women, the ‘Tiruchengode Youth Club’ in the district has formatted a novel jallikattu exclusively for women and children in recent years to be played on ‘Pongal’ ay.
On Sunday, ‘Pongal’ day this year, a large number of people crowded around this novel ‘jallikattu for women’ venue in town. The sport rules involves young women and girl children blindfolding their eyes, even as one end of a cloth string is tied to one of their legs and its other end tied to the tender legs of a hen. Both are positioned within a circle and the woman or the girl player should "catch the hen within a minute". With these ground rules set for the ‘Naveena jallikattu for women and children’, lots of young women happily played the game to perfection at the event and took home handsome prizes, said the organisers of the festival at Tiruchengode.
As part of the ‘Pongal’ festivities in the western ‘Kongu’ belt, known more for holding ‘rekla races’ for horses on the occasion, as many as 42 horses ran the ‘rekla’ race on Sunday, to the thrill of spectators lined up along its 7-km long tournament route.
These ‘rekla’ race horses were pooled from districts such as Erode, Tiruchy, Coimbatore, Karur and Salem and the racing horses were divided into four categories. Those betting on the ‘rekla’ races that eventually won, got handsome cash prizes, sources said, adding, two ‘Yoga’ instructors from London were among the surprise visitors to this year’s ‘rekla’ races for horses in Tiruchengode.
