The Archery Association of Tamil Nadu (TAAT)

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TAAT

THE ARCHERY ASSOCIATION OF TAMIL NADU

"The official state body of Tamil Nadu Archery!"

Only State Archery body recognized by and affiliated to:

Tamil Nadu Olympic Association (TNOA) and Archery Association of India (AAI)
(TNOA is the only body recognized by Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and
AAI is the only body recognized by World Archery (WA))






History of Archery in Tamil Nadu - Part 1

Geologists who have studied the ages of various countries, hold that the Pandya land with some adjacent areas is decidedly one of the earliest patches of land to be formed in the face of earth.

The Pandya country, comprising the modern districts of Madurai, Tirunelveli and Ramnad is one of the most ancient areas in India where we get evidence of man's invention and usage of Archery.

The last practitioners of Archery in South India were the Maharajas of Mysore and some families of warriors from the Pandya kingdom in Madura now known as Madurai.

Syed Khazi Tajudeen, a direct descendant from the bloodline of Prophet Mohammed who was sent to south India by the Arabian caliphates to sell pure breeds of racing Arabian horses for Equestrian Archery to the Pandya king Soundrarapandyan took over as the chief instructor of Equestrian Archery for the Pandya king and trained the warriors to fight with bows made of wood, copper and arrows made of wood and iron.

While the utility of bows and arrows diminished with the introduction of firearms by the britishers and the portugese, some families of the Khazis continued to practise Archery while they religiously trained in other martial arts like Kusti, Madura Musti, Kalari Payittru and Silambam.

Syed Abdul Quadir Hussaini was the 14th in line in the family tree of Syed Khazi Tajudeen and was known for his extraordinary skills of shooting down 6 cranes in quick succession while a flock of them flew overhead.

His son Ali Murtuza ran a firewood and bamboo shop in Khazimahalla (a very historic street in Madurai where all the descendants of Tajudeen lived in land donated by King Soundarapandyan) where he used to make bows and arrows from suitable wood, seasoned bamboos and waste tin and would teach the local lads to hit a target of straw wound up around a tree inside his firewood shop. He was very popular with the young kids and they used to fondly call him "Teer chaccha".

Ali Murtuza's son Syed Abdul Quadir Hussaini II took a keen fascination for Archery and while he became famed in Indian martial arts and fencing and went on to become an erudite scholar, leading academician, historian and author of several books, he retained his love for Archery.

Prof Hussaini travelled wide inside India and abroad during his research projects and learnt several forms of Archery.

He discovered the usage of bow and arrows by the Toda tribes of Neelagiri districts to hunt small games like rabbits and birds.

He travelled to the north east and learnt the tribal form of Archery in Meghalaya which was incorporated in their social life there. He travelled many times to Nepal and learnt Archery from the marksmen of the hill tribes.

During one of his many visits to Japan, the Prof now known as Dr. S.A.Q. Hussaini learnt a form of Japanese Archery called "Zazen Kyudo" and he was very convinced that there was a perfect blending of the mind and body with the bow, arrow and target in Japanese Archery and keenly taught Japanese Archery to a large group of his history students at Aligarh Muslim University, Dacca University, Madras University and in the late 1950s at Calcutta University where he worked as a Professor of Islamic history.

It used to be a familiar sight every day when Dr. Hussaini used to start lecturing his history students. Everyone would assemble at the Calcutta new park residence at sharp 4:30AM in the chilly mornings. The prof and his students would go for a long jog to the large park in the vicinity and then the tough martial art exercises would start.

In the end the students would unload the target butts made of hay and coconut fibre ropes from an old truck and all students had to shoot bamboo arrows at a distance of 50 meters. Then the prof would assemble all of them in the lawns for their daily lecture on History. Dr. Hussaini was a powerful motivator and he emphasized the relation between the principles of Archery of reaching the bulls' eye and the importance of focus, concentration, patience, control and mental relaxation to succeed in life. After all life became meaningful only when one succeeded in reaching targets one sets out with. Most of his bright Calcutta students took up to Archery as a ritualistic tool for success in life.

Hussaini coined the success mantra for his students thus "Where there is a 'Vil' there is a way!"

'Vil' In the Tamil language means 'Bow' and it was an apt pun that he used.

Though scores of his Calcutta university student learnt Archery, his best student was however an uneducated poor lad who took care of Prof. Hussaini's horses in Madurai Khazimahalla.

This well built lad called Basha took classes from Dr. Hussaini whenever he used to visit Madurai annually and took a very keen interest in all martial arts that he taught but he was extremely fond of Archery and he used to practise it with single minded zeal.

He impressed Dr. Hussaini by gifting him cranes that he would shoot and there was always tasty food at Dr. Hussaini's home available for all visitors when he came. Dr. Hussaini in turn would bring him all sorts of bows and arrows from where ever he travelled.

Basha was so adept at Archery that he could shoot at targets with his eyes blind folded, could shoot at a dove released by the crowd while he was racing at full speed in a single seater horse drawn chariot called 'Rekala' during local festivals and created a bow and stringed arrows with which he could shoot at fishes.

Basha was seen as a Parapsychic by many and his mental tool was his bow and arrow.

After an untimely death of Prof Hussaini in a massive cardiac arrest in Calcutta in 1966, the bereaved family shifted back to the ancestral city of Madurai.

Basha immediately took little Syed Ali Hussaini into his fold and took upon himself to pay back his gratitude to Prof. Hussaini by teaching the fatherless child every thing he knew about martial arts and archery.

Basha bhai became little Hussaini's guardian angel and he used to visit Devakottai, a small town where for two years where Hussaini studied and lived with his uncle A.S.M. Ibrahim an influential Deputy commercial tax officer.

Basha bhai used to teach Hussaini how to shoot poisonous snakes while they moved very fast in the thick woods in the vicinity of St. Mary's School. As a student of the third standard Hussaini was very famous in the school campus as the 'Snake slayer'.

There were lots of snakes in the campus of the school and little Hussaini was the hero of the school. He used to catch the poisonous snakes bare handed at their tails, spin them around his head and smash their heads on rocks. The snakes he could not catch, he chased them around the campus and shot them down with his small yet powerful bow and arrows. He fascinated his little classmates with his skills in Archery which he used to knock off tamarin pods, raw mangoes and guvava fruits from trees and give it away to his amazed fans. The little archer used to spend hours sharpening his arrow heads which were made of tin cut from powder and jam containers and fixing bird feathers to his arrow shafts. He had quite a following of friends in school. Hussaini was a very intelligent child and did so very well in studies that he got a double promotion in his third standard and went straight to fifth, skipping the fourth. His favourite story was that of William Tell and how he shot an apple placed on his son's head with an arrow. He was warned several times by his teachers for shooting cardboard boxes and tins placed on his classmates head with his bow and arrows. One error and the arrows would pierce the eyes of face of the kids. Every time the teachers seized his bow and arrows and admonished him, Hussaini would make another one and start his antics.

His Uncle was summoned by the headmistress and given a final warning. At home, his aunty took away all his Archery equipment and tools and hid it. Hussaini was so heartbroken about it that the next day, during the lunch hour, he summoned his younger brother, Ishaq and his close friends and informed them that he was running away to Madurai to join Basha bhai. After a farewell speech, Hussaini started walking away from school. And he was just seven years old. He knew the main road to Madurai as the buses used to pass on this road. From 1PM to nearly 7PM, he kept walking, a lonesome little traveller on a road unknown. News had gone to his Uncle when his brother returned home and his Uncle rushed with a posse of cops searching for his delinquent runaway nephew in a jeep. The little fugitive was picked up on the dark road 45 kms away from the school.

A shocked and sobbing Uncle hugged him and asked him what happenned. "I want my bow and arrows back" came the reply. The little Archer got into the jeep only after his Uncle assured him that his Archery equipment would never be taken from him again.

The teachers loved him as he asked questions that would so baffle them that they used to spend hours preparing before they handled little Hussaini's class.

The sudden death of his Uncle Mr. Ibrahim in a heart attack saw Hussaini shifting back to Madurai and the Khazimahalla. Basha bhai was overjoyed to have his ward so close to him.

Syed Ali Hussaini now grew under the watchful eyes of his mentor.

Basha bhai used to take him to the fertile river beds of the Vaigai river and taught him how to crawl between the long reeds and shoot cranes and take them by surprise.

He also taught him how to do fishing with his Archery equipment.

Hussaini was somehow not happy with the killing of the poor birds. He was reluctant to shoot the cranes.

The little boy used to be taken to a popular hill called "Sikandar Manda" the urdu equivalent of the "Tirparramkunram Hill" and he was given extremely tough endurance exercises. The breathless kid had to run non stop to the top of the hill with his teacher and then had to do various yogic asanas and breathing exercises before being taught bare hand and foot fighting techniques.

Then they used to wait till a flock of cranes would fly above and then shoot them with their bows and arrows. The evening used to end with a sumptuous meal of crane meat fried over a bon fire.

Getting down the hill in the night used to be the most thrilling experience of all. Half way through the hill, there used to be a grave yard. Basha bhai used to sit there and tell Hussaini several stories of spirits and ghosts and how not to fear them. Instead of being afraid Hussaini used to get terribly excited and learnt the art of winning over fear.

Basha bhai was well known in Madurai and surrounding areas as a soothsayer and prognosticator. People who had lost valuables would come to him to locate them or to find out who had stolen them. In local parlance it was known as "Kuri Parkirathu". Basha would take a beetle leaf and stretch it on his palm.

Basha bhai would suddenly disappear from the Mahalla without telling anyone, even his family for months. Sometimes for a few years. Hussaini used to dread such periods and used to wait for days waiting for the early morning knock on the door when Basha bhai would appear from nowhere.

There used to be lots of very interesting things that the teacher would get for the little boy. There were Buddhist singing bowls, trinkets, tavees, small knives, singing bamboos, flutes, and dry fruits from the north. But there would always be a nice bow and a set of several sharp arrows for the boy.

Basha bhai would have travelled to the northern mountains, the western ghats, the eastern temples and learnt a lot of tricks from roaming sadhus and fakirs. He himself started growing several coils of thick hair fused by the unwashed dirt.

While little Hussaini was very fascinated by Archery, his reluctance to hunt down birds grew deeper and stronger. He told this to his Guru who was very disappointed.

Basha bhai stopped forcing the little warrior into Archery and focused in teaching him the unarmed martial arts of Madura Mushti and Kalari Payyatu.

The rise of little Hussaini into Shihan Hussaini, The foremost Karate expert in the country is another story. Shihan Hussaini introduced Tatsuo Shimabuku's Issshinryu Karate to India in the year 1977, became the first Indian to Win an International Karate Championship, started 554 Karate schools all over the country, Won 4 World Karate Tournaments, created 9 human endurance world records and trained over three hundred thousand students and created 1791 black belt instructors in the last thirty seven years.

His passion for Archery was always there all through but he had no one to guide him.

His mentor Basha bhai had done one of his disappearing acts in 1974 never to return. Till date neither his family nor does anyone else know what happened to him.

The year 1975 was a significant date for the resurgence of Archery in Tamil Nadu.

During a flight between Bombay and Chennai, Shihan Hussaini was accosted by a young man called Shiva. Shiva introduced himself to Shihan and and told him that he had heard about him and his meditative practices and wanted to learn meditation from him. He also told that he had heard that his father was very skilled in Archery.

He also told Hussaini that he wanted to learn meditation, as his Archery teacher in London asked him to learn meditation to improve his shooting skills in Archery. A relaxed calm mind could focus and shoot better he was told.

Archery?... Shihan Hussaini grew interested.

....CONTINUED IN PART 2 SOON !



Tamil Nadu Olympic Association (TNOA)
click logo for TNOA website

Archery Association of India (AAI)
click logo for AAI website

Indian Olympic Association (IOA)
click logo for IOA website

World Archery (WA)
click logo for WA website


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