Excitement builds as Chennai is set to host regatta from January 7 to 11

Madras Boat Club's historic ARAE-FEARA Regatta along the Adyar River, showcasing rowing traditions and age group events.

To us who are forever moaning over the state of the city’s rivers but doing precious little about it, and perhaps contributing to their degradation, the members of the Madras Boat Club (MBC) are something of a wonder. And by that, I mean the rowing members. They stoically get into their boats and row down the Adyar, unmindful of all that flows in it. They are probably the only cause for some movement in the waters, other than when Chembarambakkam is overflowing. The MBC itself is a historic institution, having been around since 1867. It has been a witness to the steady degradation and loss of water cover in the city, for when it began, it held events in the Cooum (!), the Long Tank of Mylapore, and the Ennore Creek before settling down by the Adyar in the 1890s.

There is excitement along the Adyar as the MBC is set to host the ARAE-FEARA Regatta this year. The honour for doing so falls in rotation on the various member clubs of the Amateur Rowing Association of the East (ARAE), which at the time of its establishment in 1933, comprised the rowing clubs at Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, Madras, Rangoon, and Pune. The MBC was the second oldest club in the Indian sub-continent. Within a short while of the establishment of the ARAE, its Regatta was planned, and we find that the MBC was given the honour of hosting it for the first time in 1934. Then the MBC, and for that matter all the others of its kind, were Whites Only and most of the organisers and participants were boxwallahs, executives in the various British companies of that era.

But that was all to change with the Second World War and Indian Independence. Thus, when in 1954, the MBC was host (it did so several times in the interim as well), membership was mixed, and many Indians were involved in the arrangements. That was also the year when the Far Eastern Amateur Rowing Association of Asia (FEARA) came into existence, with its own Regatta. Over the years, the two, organised respectively by the ARAE and the FEARA, coalesced into one and is known as the ARAE-FEARA Regatta. And the MBC is set to host it, between January 7 and 11, 2025. As befitting an event in its 81st edition, it has its own traditions. The chief guest is welcomed under an arch of oars, the culmination of the event has everyone joining in a final call of “Easy Oars”, and there is a tug of war across two boats. Gone, however, is the practice of tossing the coxswain of the victorious team into the water, out of consideration for their future well-being, such being the condition of Indian rivers.

An interesting feature of the Regatta is that it has events for practically all age groups — Master and Super Master categories allow for veterans to compete and demonstrate that their skills are very much alive. The trophy names are interesting. The Hooghly and Adyar Trophies are the most prestigious, but we also have, among others, the Willingdon Trophy for the Men’s Four. I doubt if there is any other former Viceroy of India who made sure he was commemorated in so many ways. But then he made a career out of the empire, for he was the Governor of Bombay and Madras, the Governor-General of Canada, and the Viceroy of India! With a Minister for Sports Development and a highly placed one at that, I hope the administration takes notice of the Regatta and starts doing something about the river.

(V. Sriram is a writer and historian.)