Have you heard about the contact sport Kabaddi before? I hadn't until this morning. It's actually been around for centuries and is today hugely popular with millions of people watching the game on television:

A fighting game that Indian boys have been playing for hundreds of years has arrived on television screens and the Indian public is delighted.

[...]

Indian TV viewers are likewise wild about the sport. On the opening day of action of the national Pro Kabaddi League, 22 million people in India tuned in to the television broadcaster Star India to watch.

For comparison, this was ten times as many as the Indians who watched the opening match of the football World Cup in Brazil in June. In the initial weeks of broadcasts since the season opened, audience ratings have beaten every other sport except for cricket.

[...]

It's a breathless game, literally. In the Pro-Kabaddi version of it, the action takes place on a court about half the size of a basketball court. Two teams of seven players face off against each other.

Then a raider moves towards the opposing side where he must touch an opponent with some part of the body. However, the attacker may take only one breath of air beforehand. To prove to the judges that he is not inhaling, he must repeatedly call out out "Kabaddi! Kabaddi! Kabaddi!"

The opponents either try to avoid being tagged by the raider, or else, if they do get tagged, to catch him and prevent him from getting back to the mid-line before he has to start breathing again.

Often the rough-and-tumble play resembles rugby, with the raider being tackled or wrestled to the floor. After this raid has either succeeded or failed, it is the other team's turn to send a raider.

A point is awarded for each raider who succeeds in getting back to his half of the court. The team with more points is the winner.

Here is a BBC News coverage explaining the game and how it's done (unfortunately, no embed alternative).

Featured image: An Italian Kabaddi player (right) is tackled by a US opponent during the 1st Pearls World Cup Kabaddi Punjab 2010 tournament at Guru Nanak Stadium in Amritsar April 8. Photo by Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images. Via Boston.com.