Kerala - Alappuzha   

Season of splashing oars and festivities from Monday

— PHOTO: by special arrangement

Rowing to rhythm: Members of the Jesus Boat Club, Kollam, practise in the Pampa river at Pallathuruthy in Alappuzha for the Champakulam Moolam Boat Race that will be held on Monday.

ALAPPUZHA: Heralding the beginning of this year’s boat race season, the Champakulam Moolam Boat Race will be held here on Monday. The 400-plus year-old race is the first in a series of similar races, including the internationally popular 56-year-old Nehru Trophy race, which will be held over the next three months.

The Champakulam race will be inaugurated by Revenue Minister K.P. Rajendran 1 p.m. on Monday on Pampa river at Champakulam, around 25km from here. Coir and Cooperation Minister G. Sudhakaran will give away the prizes and the Raja Pramukhan Trophy. Eight snakeboats including popular names like Payippad, Champakulam, Nadubhagom, Karichal, Kallooparamban and Jawahar Thayankari, will be participating in the event. The total number of boats, including the smaller ones that will take part in various categories, is 19.

The festivities that are held as a prelude to the race began with a cultural procession here on Saturday. With the Champakulam Boat Race signalling the start of a string of boat races, several boat clubs, including the Kollam Jesus Boat Club, last year’s Nehru Trophy winner, are sweating it out on the waters of the Pampa, taking trial after trial.

The trials concluded on Saturday, leaving a day’s rest for the oarsmen, more than 100 of whom have synchronised their actions on each boat to ensure that their boat cuts through the water faster than the others.

The other popular boat races that will follow the Champakulam boat race in Alappuzha include the Payippad Boat Race, the Rajiv Gandhi Trophy Boat, Race at Pulinkunnu and the Karuvatta, Mannar and Neerattupuram boat races, to name a few. The races are spread over the districts of Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam and Kollam.

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