As we roved around Kolhapur, we were constantly aware of the fact that the city has a very strong tongue and taste for non-vegetarian cuisine. We were told that if we don’t eat mutton, Kolhapur isn’t the best place for us. We came across multiple restaurants and meat shops specializing in mutton delicacies. Apparently there are special meat shops, which sell only male mutton meat as well - phenomenon I heard for the first time!
One of the persons we met told us-Kolhapur is a place of three Ts - Talim, Tamasha and Tambra Rassa. The three Ts in a way capture a bit (or much?) of Kolhapur other than the Kolhapuri chappals that almost everyone who knew we were in Kolhapur, asked us to buy.
Abundant with great climate as well as dairy and meat products, Kolhapur traditionally has been a centre of Talims (and Akhadas), which is the first T.
Talims are old and local institutions that serve as the center for wrestling training. Talim’s have been managed and patronized by the prominent people of the city/locality. Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj, coronated as the king of Kolhapur was a patron of Talims and many akhadas were created and Talims flourished under his time. He himself trained as a wrestler. When he visited Europe and saw Colosseum of Rome, he came back and commissioned construction of Khasbag maidan, a wrestling amphitheatre with a capacity of ~40,000 (couldn’t verify this) for wrestling. Money for the operations of Talims comes from local subscriptions and through donations for various local festivals, which encompass all religions. They have been models of institutions that originated, managed and perpetuated from local strengths-physical as it may be and financial. The Talims are still prevalent and are visible all around Kolhapur and produces not only wrestlers, but athletes, football players and others. They follow the master-disciple format where a disciple is initiated and trained by senior ustads. Originally, most of the Talims were set up in Maruti (Hanuman) temples as Hanuman has been the God of bachelors as well as wrestlers.
Tamasha (or Tamasa), the popular performance based art and recreation is the second T. It is an indigenous form of folk entertainment. Tamashas were usually performed at annual congregations such as local festivals or harvests with a team of locally trained and honed artists. In the times when no electronic media had made inroads, this art form combined films, music, theatre, radio in one medium. Like the various similar performance based art forms in Rajasthan, Haryana and other states, Tamasha was patronized much more in villages and night was the preferred time of performance. The dominant deity is Lord Ganapati who is invoked at the beginning in a song/arati called gana. It is followed by Gavalana depicting the Krishna and milk-maid stories. Tamasha has/had multiple layers of songs, dances and acting after the opening acts. The reason that Kolhapur became a melting pot of Marathi Cinema is because of its strong roots in Tamasha and other folk forms of entertainment and this interactive medium still holds on to its own. Dadasahab Phalke made the first film based on one of the stories often featured in Tamashas-Raja Harishchandra. Natrang, the recent Atul Kulkarni starrer Marathi movie used Tamasha/Lavani as the backdrop for its narrative.
Tambra (and Pandra) Rassa is the third T. Rassa are the curries mostly associated with mutton in Kolhapur. Tambra curry is the signature red curry prepared with a host of spices and mutton stock and made extremely red by using red chillies. Complemented with roasted mutton, Tambra Rassa is a hugely popular local preparation. Wheat or multi-grain Bhakhari is the bread with what all of this goes. We couldn’t relish its taste but we were glad to see the excitement and love for the food that Kolhapur has. (We did enjoy the vegetarian fare very much including misal, usal, akha masoor, kanda besan, bhakhri and matka dahi). The uniqueness of the masala that goes to prepare Tambra Rassa is trying to seek a wider recognition by getting it registered with a geographical indication (GI) mark. The Karveer Adarsha Mahila Aaudyogik Sahkari Sanstha, a local women self help organization, has applied for the GI mark for the mixture that gives Tambra Rassa its unique taste and it hopes to claim the uniqueness for the benefit of local producers against the various spurious mixes in the name of Kolhapuri masalas.
