Khuru

Every year in the fall, there is a day of celebration called the Blessed Rainy Day, marking the end of the rainy season. This year it was Spetmeber 23, and the students planned to have a khuru tournament to celebrate. Khuru is a traditional Bhutanese game, like lawn darts, with small targets spaced 20 meters or more (60+ feet) apart. It is a tamer version of the traditional archery that is very common. (The movie “Travelers and Magicians” opens up with a great scene of traditional Bhutanese archery, including the crazy taunting that happens in front of the target, which unfortunately leads to many injuries, or worse). 

 

Come Blessed Rainy Day, however, the students had to cancel their plans because it was… too rainy! So they pushed it back a few weeks, until they were sure it would be a dry day.

 

One Sunday in mid-October, we went out for a walk only to find khuru had taken over much of the parking lot next to the library. This area has been designated for sports fields, but they haven’t been built yet, so the students improvise football games, basketball, and darts in the dirt. I had seen students and staff out there playing darts many times, and have always been impressed that they occasionally manage to hit such a small target at that distance. Though khuru apparently is a male sport, and I have never seen any of the female students playing. 

 

The tournament was a whole different thing, with plenty of taunting in front of the targets, and singing and dancing and hoots and catcalls and all sorts of distractions. There were piles of colored cloth torn into strips that players would add to their belts when they hit a target, with different colors for different places on the target.

 

Later in the day, I went back out to revisit the tournament, and saw that most everyone had colors hanging from their gho belts. I chatted for a moment with Kinley, the chief prefect (student body president) for a few minutes, and he confessed to me that he was the only one out there who hadn’t hit a target all day.

 

Then he stepped up to throw.

 

And this was where it landed:

 

 

The students laughed that I had brought Kinley good luck 😎 

The dance that broke out was a whole ton of fun! I’m sorry that I can't post videos on this site, but I can say it was a thrill to see these young men dancing and singing and just having a grand old time. Like they weren't law students for an afternoon.