Long before I visited Japan I fell in love with sumo. A kid and I used to play at it in school. He was a fat boy with shorts hitched up to just under his moobs. I was a shrimplet with no discernible waist. While waiting for our carpools in the drowsy hours of a Madras afternoon, we’d face each other and squat, smack our thighs, pretend to throw salt around… I don’t remember any actual wrestling happening. It was the ritual we enjoyed. Bizarre, I know. Especially since I can’t remember ever having watched the sport on TV. In fact, I have no memory of the first time I witnessed two overweight men in fringed diapers with impossibly hairless skin and topknots lunge at each other. Some weeks ago, in Tokyo, I attended my first sumo tournament. I’d like to underplay the event here and say, merely, that it was just a cool thing to be doing. But the truth is that even to the most random of passers-by, it must have been evident that I was on the verge of realising one of my dreams. I was everywhere at once: the memorabilia shop and the museum, checking out the crowds (highly organised), stalking the hallways in the hope of encountering one of the great men ambling around in kimonos and wooden sandals. I’d heard that sumo wrestlers were incredibly charismatic and amenable to posing for photographs. But I had to settle for second best: dilly-dallying with one of the cutout figures outside the stadium, trying not to look too pleased. I failed.

Shame is a thing that a sports fan can’t have any truck with. You’re either in it, or you’re not. At least, this is what I told my husband, whom I’d dragged along, despite the fact that tingles of pleasure presumably did not run up and down his spine when he watched two panda-bear sized men trying to give each other wedgies. “Park me at the nearest Ramen bar,” is what he might have wanted to say. But he stuck with me, out of curiosity perhaps, or to ensure I didn’t do a runner with a yokozuna.

The Kokugikan stadium is arranged in tiers. Our seats are midway between nosebleed and threat-of-squashing-by-flying-sumo section, closer to the ring. It’s the first day of the September Grand Sumo Tournament, and there’s a twitchy kind of excitement in the air. Ten thousand people are filing in, but because this is Japan, everything feels contained, and smells of baby powder. Below us, Japanese families spread elaborate picnics on floor cushions. Beside us, another gaijin couple fiddle with their rented radio set, trying to tune into the English channel. We are opting more for the hands-free, lost-in-translation experience.

I’m never going to be able to describe the feeling of watching my first bout, but try to imagine a 180kg man momentarily suspended in air before falling to the ground. Largeness is part of it, of course. Contemporary aesthetic perspectives steer us towards the lean, the aerodynamic — iPhones, runway models, skyscrapers. So to suddenly see all this oomph on display is exhilarating and downright anarchic. But there’s also largeness of spectacle. Taiko drums booming. Referees that could give Mylapore mamis a run for their money with their extravagant silk robes. The shrill Kabuki voice of the announcer piercing your eardrums, while two sweepers clear the sand of the ring in perfect synchronicity. And the wrestlers themselves, who emerge from their respective wings in their elaborate loincloths (mawashi), and who seem to inhabit an eternally panoramic setting in the viewfinder. These guys are no blobs though. They’re strong and flexible, able to squat, stand, squat, stand, swing their legs sideways and up above their heads, stomp, swing and smack. Besides which, they’ve got megawatts of attitude.

Before any fighting begins, there are pre-fight antics, which can be almost as entertaining. Think of it as an Alpha-male stare-down on steroids. First they clap their hands to wake up the gods, then they sip water to purify their bodies, then they stomp their feet to ward off evil spirits. Salt-throwing, mysterious armpit wiping and slap-slapping body parts is all part of the warm-up routine. My favourite move being the upward stomach slap — a wave-like motion that scoops up the fat of the belly, setting the whole thing a-ripple and a-wobble. When the wrestlers finally come to the centre of the ring to face each other, personality has been clearly established and the crowd, with their cheering, indicate who they’re rooting for.

Unlike other man-bashing sports like boxing, there are no weight categories in sumo. So you could have a veritable Moby Dick against a puny sardine. The thrilling thing is that it’s not just two fat guys trying to upturn the other. There are 82 ways for a sumo wrestler to destabilise his opponent — slap-downs, hook thighs, backward body drops, leg grips, thrust-downs, trips and twists, of which the classiest, by far, is the okuritsuriotoshi or rear-lift body slam. The rules are quite simple: first person out of the ring is out; first person who touches any part of his body (other than the soles of his feet) in the ring, is out. No ponytail-pulling, punching, choking, and certainly no messing with the crotch.

For three hours we watch in a kind of stupefied agitation. Two by two, the wrestlers come, and you think, ‘Won’t it ever get boring?’ But it doesn’t. At least, not for me. When the last bout is over and the winner has been declared, the crowds fling their floor cushions into the ring and we seep out without any elbowing or trampling, and the city absorbs us effortlessly into her myriad streets.

Travel Log

Getting there

Japan Airlines, All Nippon Airways and Air India operate direct flights from Delhi to Tokyo. Other metros can connect with Cathay Pacific, Korean Air or Thai Airways.

Stay

Just a 10-minute taxi ride from Kokugikan stadium, and within strolling distance of the Imperial Palace, the Shangri-La ( www.shangri-la.com/tokyo/shangrila/) is a perfect Tokyo base.

Tip

Six Grand Sumo tournaments are held every year in Japan. For timings and tickets, go to www.buysumotickets.com

Tishani Doshi is a poet, novelist based in Chennai