You’ve seen it if you’ve stood in that crowd — the drums stop, the base locks its arms, and in maybe four seconds seven layers of people are standing on top of each other. It’s a genuinely incredible thing to watch. It’s also, and nobody really says this part loudly, one of the riskier things a bunch of untrained twenty-somethings will attempt all year.

Everyone assumes the danger’s at the top. Makes sense — that’s the part everyone’s filming. But talk to anyone who’s actually treated Govinda injuries and they’ll tell you the base and middle layers take the worst of it. That’s where the weight actually lives, held a few seconds longer than the team planned, until something in the structure just… gives.

Wrists snap. Collarbones too, more than you’d think. Ankles roll when a layer buckles sideways instead of coming straight down. And then there’s the one everyone’s actually scared of — neck and spinal injury, particularly if the fall’s coming from six or seven layers up. Add a pulled muscle here or there from the sudden sideways twist as the whole pyramid sways, and a head hitting wet ground because — let’s not forget — this is happening in the middle of monsoon, and you’ve got a fairly rough injury list for what’s supposed to be a festival.

That monsoon timing matters more than people give it credit for. A team can nail their formation twenty times in a dry courtyard and still come apart on match day because the road’s slick, or there’s a pothole nobody accounted for, or the base guy’s grip just isn’t the same on wet skin.

A few things actually move the needle here. Warming up properly — genuinely, not the half-hearted stretch most teams do — because cold muscles under sudden load tear more easily than anything else on this list, and it’s the one risk that’s almost entirely avoidable. Putting your heaviest, steadiest people at the base and keeping them there, even when that’s not who the team wants down there for the group photo. And actually checking the ground before you go up, because “it looked fine” has ended a lot of Govinda seasons early.

If someone does fall — and this is the part people get wrong most often — the instinct is to run over and pull them up, dust them off, ask if they’re fine. Don’t. Not if there’s any chance of a back or neck injury. Keep them still, keep everyone else back, and get real medical help moving right away, rather than someone deciding on the spot whether it’s “serious enough.”

That’s more or less why Zenzo’s on the ground this season as the Pro Govinda League’s Official Medical Partner — ambulances and trained paramedics stationed at every venue, not three streets away waiting on a call. When a pyramid comes down, the only thing that matters is how much time sits between “someone needs help” and “help is already there.”

Zenzo Healthcare — From Crisis to Care. 1800 102 1298.