Historical Shandur Polo Festival in July this year

PESHAWAR, June 2 (APP):After over two years, the annual Shandur Polo Festival will be held on its old schedule in July this year, an
official of the Tourism Corporation, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Saturday said.
Talking to APP, he said, “It will be organized from July 7 to 9, as for a couple of years the annual three-day calendar festival could not be held due to floods and Ramadan last year, however, this year, efforts have been taken to hold the event on its old schedule in July,” he also confirmed.
The TCKP, he said, has started a process to put in place the
arrangements and float advertisements to attract tourists from across the
world.
In this regard, officials from the Gilgit-Baltistan government are
likely to be invited to Peshawar to make the arrangements in order to
facilitate the spectators.
The poor condition of roads leading to the venue at Shandur
located in Chitral near the KP province and Gilgit-Baltistan is the major obstacle
for tourists in reaching the area. Despite repeated announcements and the
federal government’s decision to include Gilgit-Shandur-Chitral road in the
China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), work on the construction of the road
is yet to be started.
Shandur top, which is 3700m high, also act as a bridge
between the two opponent teams of polo – Chitral and Gilgit Baltistan. Shandur
annual year festival brings a great sense of contentment among the people of
these districts. The festival is often embellished with cultural orientations
of both teams that include their cultural dances, moment of paragliding and an
essence of its folk music.
Roots of polo in Shandur are pretty deep which often leads
to perplexity. Still there are two main streams towards it. Some states that
the balti raja of skardu, Ali Sher Khan Anchan was the one who laid down the
foundation of the king game polo in the region of Shandur. On the other hand
some states that in 1935 the British occupiers were the ones who brought polo
in the region of Shandur. But the matter of its history still remains unsolved.
1936 was the year when both of these rival teams came face
to face to put forward the steps of their first polo tournament. The game was
not been stable in another following year’s due to unpaved roads and
infrastructure. Furthermore, the situation used to get worst when they had to
face the calamity of floods in summers. Shandur polo ground being far away from
their residencies caused them immense efforts towards the annual year festival.
In 1989 when Benazir Bhutto visited shandur polo festival as
a chief guest Premier. She declared it as an international event around the
world. Moreover she made a covenant to recognize it in an international world
too.
Arrival of tourists in ones country brings all sort of
favorable dealings and enhances its image around the globe. Every year Shandur Polo
Festival bestow Pakistan with its attractive powers a huge amount of tourists.
This brings a lot of business dealings with it too. In all this the beauty of
place is usually been taken as granted by many, there should be proper hygienic
measures around the visiting area. In order to portray ourselves morally stable
and disciplined among all other nations.
“Polo is known as the game of Kings, and king of the games.”
The free style polo is edged traditionally in northern areas of Pakistan. It is
one of the hardest games to play, where there is no rules and regulations.
Team Gilgit Baltistan had always been stronger than the team Chitral, but in recent
years the performance of Gilgit Baltistan is not as such in the previous years.
They claim that polo being the most expensive game demands the welfare of their
horses, their own major facilities and the injuries they get through comes
under the funds that are not being accountably distributed among the members of
polo team.
One another reasons behind poor performance of Gilgit Baltistan is that the selection of team
members is not properly organized by the selectors as compare to the team of
Chitral where there is quite an accountability in selection of their team
members and in provision of facilities.
Thus the festival being the core part of the culture in northern areas of Pakistan should be promoted enthusiastically around the world and in all other regions of Pakistan too.