Wrestling: How Does Dara Singh Compare With Gama The World Champion Of A By Gone Era

Dara Singh and Gama (Ghulam Box) are two of the greatest wrestlers India has produced.Both are from a different era.Gama was born in 1880 and died in 1964 in Lahore, while Dara Singh was born in 1928 and died this year.It is perhaps difficult to compare wrestlers from two different eras, but the under current is that both believed in Indian pehalwani and Kushti.


Gama was a Muslim and Dara a Sikh, but both hailed from the Punjab and belonged to Martial clans.Gama was lucky that he found a patron in the Maharaja of Patiala who nursed the wrestler.Dara came in a different age and had money and branched off into films where he made more money.


Gama was the world Champion when he beat Stanley Zbyszko and was awarded the title Rustom-e –Zamana or world Champion.

Who can forget that the American champion Benjamin Roller was pinned by Gama to the mat in 1:40 sec? In another bout he pinned him in 9 minutes flat.Dara also had his fair share of wins with his defeats of King Kong and Tarlok Singh.Both men are wrestling icons of their times, though the modern youngsters do not know much about Gama.Just imagine in a bout with the world champion Zbyszko he pinned him to the mat in 42 seconds.This is the stuff legends are made off.


 Dara is more famous with his name in wrestling’s hall of fame, while Gama wrestled at a time when sports were not so popular.But he did enough to be remembered for all time to come.I think it is a matter of pride that the sub continent produced two great wrestlers and made India proud.Partition was the tragedy that took Gama to Pakistan.But that is part of the game and we can relish his exploits when he was the protégé of Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala.Give him some credit as well.
Dara went one better and took to films where he made a pile.That is part of the game

Article Written by Madan G Singh

An early retired Gp Capt from Air Force who is an Executive Director in the Corporate world. Loves to write fiction and articles. Published over 60 short stories and his novel" Romance of the Frontier" is published from Notion Books.His second novel is on way for publication. The author also has close to 10,000 articles on the b net with millions of views


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