Meet the Mud Wrestlers Keeping the Ancient Indian Sport Kushti Alive

Kushti is a sport with roots dating back 2,500 years in India. Today, wrestlers leave their hometowns as children to live and train at wrestling academies, called talims. The lifestyle at a talim is extremely disciplined: Wrestlers wake up at 4 a.m. to train every day and rarely get the chance to see their families.

Kushti is a sport with roots dating back 2,500 years in India. Today, wrestlers leave their hometowns as children to live and train at wrestling academies, called talims. The lifestyle at a talim is extremely disciplined: Wrestlers wake up at 4 a.m. to train every day and rarely get the chance to see their families. We went inside Gangavesh Talim in Kolhapur and followed one of the top fighters there, Mauli Jamdade, to see what it takes to be a mud wrestler.

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