For the first time in my life I witnessed bull fighting competition in betrawati village of Nuwakot district and got to know more about the historical event. I had watched such competition in television before but I got to watch bulls fighting with each other right in front of my eyes.

Bull fighting is held annually on the occasion of maghe sankrati on the first day of the month Magh of Nepali calendar. Hundreds of tourists from neighboring districts of Nuwakot including Rasuwa, Kathmandu, and Dhading flock to the district to enjoy the competition.

The fight is held in taruka and betrawati, the two villages of Nuwakot district. In the competition 2 bulls fight with each other at a time and only the winner goes to the next round while the loser is eliminated. In this way, fight is continued till only two bulls remain and the dual between the two decides the winner of the competition.

The owners of the top three bulls are awarded with cash prize and the bull gains respect and love from everyone watching the competition. In addition, there is life time insurance policy for each and every bull that has ever entered the competition. If in case any injury is to occur to the bulls while fighting, organizers of the competition ensure that the bull gets all the medical attention it gets and cover all the fee incurred in doing so.

The main attraction of the fight is that it leaves everyone wondering what actually initiates the bulls to fight with each other on the particular day. The owners feed such bulls with especial diets all over the year but the bulls got to work like any other bulls on the field on other days. 

This year 32 bulls fought in taruka whereas 16 bulls fought in betrawati. The winner of each dual earned rs. 3000 whereas the loser earned rs. 1500 per fight this term. The competition was funded by various organizations and the organizers hadn’t imposed any sort of entry fee in the competition.
To sum up, it was a worthwhile moment at the bank of betrawati river to have actually watched bull fighting for the first time in my life.