The Hash Bash
(Photos Available)

Erik (hic) Fearn keeps off the grass and on the hash.

There we stood, ankle-deep in what appeared to be quick sand, being sucked dry by a swarm of kamikaze bugs (not just insistent mosquitoes; nope, the whole gang was out - black-flies, sand-flies, ant-flies…), the sun was quickly setting behind looming storm-clouds. Oh yeah, and we were lost, too. Or, as one of the more dedicated front-runners gleefully huffed at me as he slogged past in the near dark, “Sure we’re lost. But look at the bright side… we’re making good time!” If Charlie Brown were a Hasher, this is where he’d slump his head and say, “Good grief!”

To be sure, not everyone is cut out to be a Hasher. Qualifications are strict: You must be slightly overweight preferably a smoker, you must respect people who can render a crisp fart and/or burp at will in public, you must have a passionate (possibly even intimate) love for vast quantities of beer, and perhaps most perversely of all, you must be a keen masochist.

What else would you call this tribe of people who willingly schlep their asses over thorn-covered hill and muddy dale to convince themselves that they deserve that noblest of sporting trophies at the end of all the sweat, blood, dirt and pain – a can of beer (I prefer my girlfriends to spank me in the privacy of my own home. But that’s another story).

Yes, these people are clearly mad. But it’s a healthy, vigorous sort of madness that invites a rare camaraderie that has held strong, indeed thrived, since this drinking man’s port was spontaneously conceived by some colonial blokes right here in our own backyard (specifically, near KL’s Royal Selangor Club, then affectionately known as “The Spotted Dog” for reasons lost in the delirium of history) back in 1938.

Back then, some hard charging (to the bar, that is) British officers made their bachelor’s quarters in run down joint called the Hash House. One fine Sunday morning, after a particularly taxing evening of dedicated debauchery, the lads crawled out of bed, and in a rare moment of forethought and lucidity, clasped each other’s hands and swore an oath that has echoed through the legions of hashers to this day: Let’s go for a bit of a run to sweat out last night’s beer, and at the same time get the blood flowing and bowels moving again so we can make room for more crap food – and beer!

And so the Hash House Harriers were born.