Nikesh Shukla on the Great Gama

Great Lives

BBC

Documentary, History, Society & Culture

4.2 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 January 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ghulam Mohammad, or the Great Gama Pehlwan as he was more commonly known, was a Muslim wrestler born into a Kashmir family in India in 1878.

When writer Nikesh Shukla first came across him in a book at the airport, he thought he must be a fictional character- the stories seemed so far-fetched. Gama reportedly drank 10 litres of milk and ate six chickens every day. He also grappled with 40 wrestlers a day and did 5000 squats.

Surely this was an action hero figure and not a real man?

But Gama was real with a career spanning over 50 years, unbeaten not only in India, but also in England and Europe.

In 1910 he was dubbed the strongest man in the world. And the press feared his strength might inspire rebellion in India, then under British rule.

Joining Nikesh to tell the story of the Great Gama is Dr Majid Sheikh.

Presenter: Matthew Parris

Producer: Perminder Khatkar

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2019.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Doleepa, and I'm at your service.
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0:11.2	Technology doesn't want to be good or bad.
0:15.0	It's in the hands of the creator.
0:16.7	It's not every day that I have the CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.
0:20.7	If you're looking at your phone more than you're looking in someone's eyes, you're doing the wrong thing.
0:26.0	Julie, at your service, listen to all episodes on BBC Sales. BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:36.0	Legend has it that today's great life once lifted a stone weighing over 1,200 kilograms. That's roughly the weight of a new BMW mini or two baby elephants.
0:48.0	He was a wrestler known as The Great Gama, and nominating him is the writer, novelist and journalist Nichese Schucla.
0:55.7	Niche's latest novel is the one who wrote destiny and he's also written for the observer.
1:00.7	Nichese that can't be true, can it?
1:03.1	He could lift a car?
1:05.1	Who knows?
1:06.9	What I love about it is it's almost mythological.
1:11.3	The strength of this man. I'm not sure how true that is.
1:14.6	I think he was five foot seven, I hate, but it said that he left audiences gasping and
1:19.2	that it took 25 men to lift the rock away after he'd lifted it on his own.
1:25.0	There's something just completely awe-inspiring about the legend of his strength.
1:30.0	It's like a Guinness Book of Records himself, almost too much to be believed, like something
1:34.8	from a children's story.
1:36.5	How did you come across the character?
	...

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