Parul [West Bengal(East India)] vs Shivagami [Tamil Nadu (South India)] {Extremely sweaty battle with full story}

It was late spring in West Bengal when the call came.

Parul was standing knee-deep in a rice field, her saree hitched above her ankles, when her younger cousin sprinted across the dike road holding a phone. “It’s from the city,” he panted, eyes wide. “For you.”

Parul wiped her forehead, took the phone with muddy fingers, and listened. On the other end of the phone, it was me.

“We are from Women Wrestling Hub. A woman named Shivagami from Tamil Nadu has reached out. She wants a private trial. She asked for someone strong… someone real. We thought of you.”

Parul’s first instinct was to decline. Who travels across the country just to wrestle in secret? But something made her pause. Wrestling was not foreign to her. In fact, in her village, she was known for it—rough games with cousins growing up, tug-of-war with sacks of rice, even breaking up fights between drunk men during harvest festivals.

She had never seen it as a title. It was just who she was.

But this? This was different.

She agreed.

Chapter Two: Journey to the South

The journey was long—two trains and a car that rumbled over narrow red-dust roads. She watched the landscape change, the lush green of Bengal giving way to the dry brush and palm-studded horizon of Tamil Nadu. The language shifted. So did the food, the air, the sounds.

Parul arrived with a small cotton bag, carrying only what she needed: a fresh saree, her comb, and the letter confirming the match. No one else had come with her. She didn’t need an escort.

The Women Wrestling Hub van met her on the outskirts of a village surrounded by coconut groves. They didn’t stop in the village proper—instead, they took a narrow road to a large tin-roofed structure tucked between banana trees and silent farmland.

Very soon, she arrived in the studio.

It was cool inside, even in the afternoon heat. There was complete silence. No spectators, no cameras and no distractions.

This wasn’t for show.

Chapter Three: Shivagami

Shivagami was already there.

She was standing barefoot in the center of the empty room, her maroon half-saree neat and tightly bound. She had the kind of presence that needed no words. Shorter than Parul, but her posture made her look tall. Her arms were folded behind her back. Her hair was tied high in a braid with strands of jasmine, the only fragrance in the room.

They didn’t shake hands.

They didn’t need to.

There was something ancient about the way they looked at each other—like they had met before, in another lifetime, another field, another duel.

Parul laid down her bag in a corner and removed her slippers. Her own saree was from her village—a handwoven blue with a white border, the kind women wore during monsoons for planting season. She didn’t change or adjust. She stepped into the center barefoot, eyes steady.

I watched from the side, not as an organizer now, but as a witness.

Chapter Four : The Match

What was about to happen was not a match; it was a meeting.

The air inside the studio had thickened. Not with heat—but with anticipation. The walls stood silent, almost holding their breath with the people inside them.

Parul stood near the far wall, adjusting the pallu of her Bengal cotton saree one last time. It was deep blue, simple, and worn like armor. Her feet were bare, planted firmly on the cool mat beneath , fingers flexed slightly—nerves or focus, even she couldn’t tell. Her braid swung gently as she tilted her head, eyes scanning the room.

Across from her, Shivagami stood still, unmoving like a carved idol of power. She wore a dark maroon half-saree, neatly pleated and secured. Her skin glistened faintly under the dim studio light, and her gaze never shifted from Parul—not once since she stepped inside. Her arms were at her sides, relaxed but coiled. The silence between them was not emptiness—it was loaded, like thunderclouds moments before they crack.

The organizer—you—stood off to the side, clipboard forgotten, watching not as a manager now, but as a witness to something elemental.

No introductions were needed. They had not spoken a word to each other. Their stories were different, their villages far apart, but here, standing across a few feet of padded ground, they understood each other perfectly.

Parul exhaled slowly, rolling her shoulders back. Shivagami’s chin lifted slightly in response, almost like a bow without the movement.

Then, with no formal call, they stepped forward. Together. Equal. Measured. Deliberate.

Their bare feet whispered against the mat. Hands raised. Eyes locked.

Time slowed.

And then—
They locked up.