The greatest sport ever to be played on embroidered cushion covers

"What a glorious land, so full of splendour and beauty."
This was the libretto for both the overture and the finale, broadcast across the stadium and surrounding valley from the tannoid, of the Game of Kings. What took place in between proved the truth of these words.

I was frying breakfast on Saturday when the chowkidar burst in. "Mem, aaj bulu hai, bulu!' (bulu being polo.) I had to go, he said. I agreed, I had to go.
Town was heaving with independence day festivities. The jovial expressions and easy chat among the police contrasted with the black of their uniforms, amount of weaponry they sported and the sheer size of their presence. Squeezing between their lines and the crowds they controlled, I made my way to the stadium gates and was ushered up a red carpeted staircase to the VIP block by one of their number, along with plenty of hoi-polloi for I was not in the tea-and-cake-and-serviette VVIP block I hasten to add.
Preceeding the action were twenty minutes of public safety announcements:
"Please no one has the permission to be upon pitch," it went, while crowds made merry on that very pitch. "Maintenance has been with much difficulties," it continued, while men whooped with laughter. "During match is strictly forbidden for entrance." Could they not hear? Finally, pomposity turning to exasperation, "Please gents, remember last year!" And he went on to describe how people had entered the pitch while battle between the two valleys' teams was raging. Apparently it wasn't very nice and ought never to be repeated.
It was only when horses sprung onto the pitch, possessed, that the men chose to take their seats. At the same time a local band piped up, its reedy sound a little feeble after the patriotic numbers. One doddery fellow entered the fray to do a wee highland fling of a dance in front of the bagpiper and drummer. He soon tired and another came on, fearless in the face of so much horse power being unleashed all around.
We were ordered to salaam the dignitaries: various ministers of sport; a brigadier and a veteran freedom fighter. We stood to attention during the solemn presentation of woolly hats. Our salutes were nothing compared to those of the polo players'. As each of the eight teams rode past the dais, the riders' bodies were nearly torn in two as they restrained their steeds with one arm: biceps bulging, veins throbbing; while with the other arm they expressed dignity, honour and respect amidst all the animal energy, with it raised in a steel-girded salute. Some weaker players could not do it; their horses were no respecters of personages and bound out of rank, thinking the game must surely have begun.
As the ball was at last thrown into the fray by the Most Important Person, dignity, honour and respect were also thrown to the wind, and caution too. Whips and mallets cracked and sliced through the air. Horses reared and showed their teeth. The ball flew and the race was on. They thundered down to the goal. The whole crowd of spectators craned their necks to see. Every muscle of every horse and every rider, every mallet and every movement was focussed on that same point. All strained in one horizontal direction. And then - with one thwack - back in the opposite direction. Riders bent over their animals as if eager to beat even their own horse to the ball.
A crowd of schoolboys sat - as in Lahore Kim sat, 'in defiance of municipal orders, atop the great gun Zam-zamar' - on the pitch, behind the goal posts. As the action neared them, they rose in terror and fled, momentarily, to the sides. There were others, too, defying both tanoid and death itself by running onto the pitch when their heroes' mallets fell, to pick them up and present them again to the players.
Meanwhile the horses streaked back and forth, showing the whites of their eyes and sweating profusely. I had never before heard the sound of two horses colliding at speed and hope never to hear that low gutteral thud resound again through the bodies of two such beasts. Unhindered, they continued in hot pursuit of that ball. All the while, the sound of the surundi pipe threaded through the action and the dudun and daman drums added yet another beat to the stampede of hooves.
Play was interupted several times. Questions about the referee's judgement were followed by those about other aspects of his morality and manhood. Other questions had to be resolved too: Was the rider who fell off fit to keep on playing? Yes, it seemed he was. If the ball injured a spectator did the game have to stop? No, it was decided not.
And then intermission. Pakistan has a mascot for its cricket teams and another for all polo matches: Chacha Cricket and Chacha Polo respectively. Chacha means uncle. So Uncle Polo did his own jig as crowds once again flocked onto the pitch and gathered round. Police circled him to give him room and turned a blind eye to the tiny lad who joined him, wonderfully replicating chacha's moves in miniature.
"Man, I love this country," said the chap sitting next to me.
"I do too, so much right now." I said in reply.
Eventually a more serious minded police officer escorted the child away, deciding he probably was a threat to the peace of the land.
By the final ten minutes of the game, there was a distinct diminuendo from the musicians. Equally, the horses could not keep it up and began to be sluggish when their masters steered them back down the pitch yet again.
The score was 10-2 to the police.
I left, exhausted from just watching, as the searing light turned dusty and faded. The mountains were as still as ever.

What a glorious land, so full of splendour and beauty.

Great game, too.