A Punjabi wrestler's diet, the khurak, is a fixed regime: milk in litres, almonds soaked and ground, ghee, chickpeas, and in the traditional version a preparation of milk, almonds, poppy seed and other ingredients drunk in quantity.
The amounts are large enough to be a household's principal expense, which is why a serious pahalwan needed a patron, and why village wrestling was funded by landowners, by princely states and later by the akhara's own reputation.
The regime is accompanied by a discipline: early rising, celibacy during training, abstention from alcohol and tobacco, and obedience to the ustad.
The mud of the pit is prepared with oil, buttermilk and turmeric and is raked daily. Falling on prepared earth is different from falling on a mat and the injuries are different.
The tradition is described as dying and it has been described that way for fifty years, and the akharas of the Malwa and of Amritsar still function.
What has changed is the destination: a young wrestler now aims at a mat and a government job, not at an akhara reputation.
The khurak is milk, almonds, ghee and chana in quantity, taken to a scale that would be absurd anywhere else, and it is the visible part of a whole regime.
The rest is the exercise, the dands and baithaks in hundreds, the earth of the pit turned and oiled, and the abstinence the guru enforces.
The tradition is continuous with the akhara wrestling of the region before 1947 and it survives now mainly where there is an army or police connection to make a career of it.