“Easy oars!” shouts the coxswain, as the rowers dip their oars into the Adyar river one last time. The pink light of dusk colours the water and a startled heron takes flight. Rowers come ashore, carrying boats with sludge-green hulls, their muscles taut, limbs brown, spirits upbeat.
It’s the evening before the start of the 75th edition of the Amateur Rowing Association of the East’s (ARAE) annual regatta,
an event that has brought together premier rowing clubs from British colonies in the Eastern hemisphere since the 1930s.
Coaches shout out instructions, old oarsmen greet each other, lascars clear the decks of odds and ends, and the last of
the rowers to stoically finish an outing collapse in exhaustion as the waters gently lap against their boat.
It’s a scene that has changed little since the Madras Boat Club was established in 1867 to promote to
the highest level the sport it was founded for — rowing.
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M.R. Ravindra,lawyer, president of the Madras Boat Club (MBC) and National-level medallist in the coxless pairs open category, guides me through the tree-shaded campus. Situated on the banks of the Adyar in one of Chennai’s plushest neighbourhoods to which it lends its name, MBC had its beginnings in the Strangers’ Room of its equally illustrious neighbour, the Madras Club. City chronicler S. Muthiah, who traces the history of the club in his well-researched tome, Down By The Adyar , says the MBC was “founded by a small group of water sports enthusiasts who had been sailing and rowing in what was then a weekend getaway, the backwaters of Ennore”.
Although there seems to be little knowledge of who the club’s founding fathers were, almost every annual report and press clipping over the past century and more is safely ensconced in a quaint, gabled building — the club’s records store — that dates to 1929, making MBC one of few institutions to maintain a meticulous testimony of its journey. In it are sepia pictures of the first members of the club, rigged out smartly in formal clothes, from the years when members both sailed and rowed in Ennore Creek. By 1890, MBC moved to its permanent home by the Adyar and, a couple of years later, the Adyar Boathouse became the headquarters. Over the next half century, along with Calcutta Rowing Club, MBC grew to be one of the father figures of rowing in Asia and a fertile ground for budding oarsmen.
“MBC is home to the Madras-Colombo Regatta, the oldest inter-club regatta in the world, held since 1898 and unbroken except for the War years. Rowing is an institutionalised sport, boats are expensive and individuals can hardly spend that kind of money. We provide equipment and coach students for a nominal fee,” says Ravindra, who joined the club in 1978 as a student member.
“The club today has 1,600 members. M.M. Muthiah, the first Indian to become president of the club, invited non-rowing members to join. Rowing members, regardless of age and gender, hold a vote and need to have 300 outings in three years, participate in regattas, keep fit and know swimming,” says Fareed Hussain, MBC’s secretary.
“Initially, the rowing course ran from Kotturpuram bridge up to the Broken bridge, but sand banks have reduced the course, and the water at its deepest is 30 feet. Rowing is dictated by the daily tide charts from Port Trust. At the end of a race, tradition was to toss the cox of the winning team in; the quality of water has put a stop to that,” says Ravindra. Once you’ve fallen in, you’d be immune to anything, he laughs.
The lingering odour of the damp and the occasional corpse floating past seems to have little dented the fanatical dedication of MBC’s oarsmen. All along the walls of the parlour, the restaurant (Strokeside, that serves up plates of their famed crisp finger chips), gym (Engine Room) and the revamped bar (Easy Oars) that bear rowing terms, are wooden plaques with names of the winning crew and black-and-white photographs of men in round-necked T-shirts. Light bounces off a 1920s Clinker boat that hangs suspended from the ceiling of the bar. A bust of Budda, a legendary head lascar, made by ‘Janji’ Varugis, the first Indian to make it as crew in the 1956 ARAE regatta, sits on the bar counter. Burnished brass glints in the light. The club’s monogram with the cross oars is emblazoned everywhere. This is a corner of MBC that is forever England.
When the gentleman’s clubs of Britain were transplanted to the heat and dust of India, they almost never admitted natives or women. One of the first to give these restrictions a go-by was MBC. Women have enjoyed a rare privilege here. Shakuntala Chanda, who became MBC’s first woman captain of the boats in 2006, literally grew up at the club thanks to her father, Borun Chanda, a keen rower, after whom the ARAE trophy for ‘most deserving master oarsperson’ is named. “My father and other prominent MBC members founded the Tamil Nadu Amateur Rowing Association (TARA) in 1974 and the Rowing Federation of India (RFI) two years later. My sister and I have wonderful memories of the club. The sport not only challenges you, but also teaches coordination and team spirit. During the Madras-Colombo regatta, members host each other’s team members at their homes, and that has helped foster a rare kinship between the clubs. Another fun memory while growing up was the Pagal regatta that included games such as the greasy pole, where members fought each other in jest to stay on a well-greased pole suspended over the river, and rowed blindfolded or dressed in fancy dress. Until 20 years ago, the water was clean enough for frisky fish to jump into the boats. Rowing gives chances aplenty to represent your university and country,” says Chanda.
One such woman rower who is an India Colour, representing the country at the Beijing Asiad in 1990 is Arati Rao. Along with Gayatri Acharya, Vijaya Chari and her late sister, Pavitra Rao, and coached by K. Chacko, she was part of India’s first women’s fours team, all drawn from MBC. “We came from a family of avid sportspersons and were already playing basketball at the National level. At a summer camp for rowing in 1988, we formed a ‘fours’ with Chatura Rao as the cox. We won the ARAE at Calcutta and cleared the time trials for the Asiad. Training was tough. There were no ergometers or a gym, we lacked sponsorship to transport our boat, and we dropped a semester and gave up jobs to train. Chacko put us through the paces and we practically lived in the club, rowing at first light and again in the evening. It forged a rare bond among us. So many more women have now taken to competitive rowing and that they enjoy more facilities is wonderful to see,” says Rao.
MBC has never followed the school of ‘formal coaching’. Coaches are members willing to train the next generation of rowers. You start with the bank tub, where you learn to row on a boat tethered to a pole, and carry your own boats in. Regi Varghese who joined the club in 1993 to get a spot of exercise and was coached by Ravindra says, “A lascar is inevitably your first cox. Only when you become a senior member do lascars carry your boat.”
Raja Sattanathan, an 85-year-old businessman and avid bird photographer, has been an MBC member since 1954. “I have been a keen oarsmen since and have often rowed with Borun Chanda. The club has always been lucky to have had dedicated men and women at its helm. We’ve had good coaches and the quality of rowing has improved, much beyond what it was when I first joined it.”
From being a haven for the elite, MBC has now grown to become inclusive. “We were under 18 feet of water during the 2015 floods and suffered quite a loss. But that didn’t stop us from taking our boats out to help people in the slums nearby. We revamped the club, bought a fleet of imported boats, helped clean up the Adyar and offered rowing experiences for youth from disadvantaged backgrounds. We are now gearing up to host an international regatta in June, where seasoned clubs from the U.K. and Asia will participate,” says Ravindra.
It’s dark now and a breeze sets aflutter the flags on a long line of poles, one of which has rings marking the level of every flooding of the Adyar. James Joseph, National-level rower and current captain of the boats, stands on the deck watching the last boat come in. Lights from the boathouse glitter like gems on the river. And far away in the water, a cox calls “easy oars”, signifying the end of rowing for the day. A call that has stayed far from Madras Boat Club’s ethos these past 150 years.
At the end of a race, tradition was to toss the cox of the winning team in; the quality of water has put a stop to that
