[Guest post by Ranju]

For the kick-starter, Rowing is a sport which is highly catching up in the city of Madras, thanks to Madras Boat Club. A membership here costs 50k for a year where in you will have put in 300 hours of rowing. As an annual event, the MBC conducts a Corporate Regatta which is aimed to bring in more people into this sport. In this regard, my friend’s mom, Neela, who has a production house of her own called Madras Houz, decided that it would be great for us to participate. I have done some music – related work such as jingles, sound edits/recording for the company and hence qualify as a part time employee there. Apart from Neela, there are 2 other women working in the company, Uma and Sharmishta (my friend, Neela’s daughter). So the four of us decided that it would be fun and fitness combined for us if we signed up for this year’s Regatta. So that’s exactly what we did. Little did we realize how serious we were becoming about this event. Every morning, 5 hours past midnight saw us standing in Boat Club waiting for boats to be pulled out! Initially, it was quite hard, considering a) I NEED my sleep! b) The inviting(?) smell of the “koovam”. But as the sport got exciting, it didn’t matter. I got over my sleep issue and I just got used to the smell (Honestly, it isn’t that bad, considering they take special care of the course where we row!).

We practiced for 2 long months, almost everyday! The one hour in the morning with extensive coaching by the Club coaches did us real good. We got better by the week and we realized how strong we were becoming and how a sport changes the way you look at your day/week/life. We rowed as 4 on a boat and also took part as two entries (MH A & MH B) in the pairs contest, with two each on one boat.

As race day got closer, we started practicing in the evenings after work as well. Only then did we realize how excited we were about winning the race. Even though the buzz around the club was that 4 of us were going to be a tough team, we still wanted to make sure that we live upto that. There were many teams from all over the city, with 7 women’s only teams, from companies like Sify, Element K, Lion Bridge, JWT, O&M and of course, Madras Houz.

The heats began 3 days before the final race. A race is 750 meters and only two teams can race at a time. Each team had 2 entries for the pairs and we did too! So we got cracking down to the first race. This was easily the scariest part for me as Sharmishta and I were a team and we were to take on corporate oarspersons (not rowers ) who have had experience for about 5-6 years, in our FIRST EVER race!! Quite tense, we sat on the boat and till the second we heard the “Are you ready on the inside? Are you ready on the outside? Are you ready? ROW!” we didn’t realize the amount of energy in us! No more thinking after that and we took her home to the finish in style and won our first race!!! YAYY!

After that, there were 3 more races that we had to clear to reach the finals and we did so quite well! And guess who we met at the finals?? MH B! So us Madras Houz girls won both the first AND second place in our first ever Regatta! Result! Element K won the over all championship as they had a guys team as well. But we were more than delighted with our loot! Huge trophies are always a high! If only we were given a free membership to go with it Even the press paid us a visit on the day of the finals.

A little background on Regatta: this event has been held for the past 80 years and has been successful in churning out few on India’s best oarspersons. The excitement, the festive air, the spirit, the fights, the shrug offs, the pre and post dinners, the beer, which sure excites all the men and everything else that comes along with the package, it sure is a delight to be part of the entire extravaganza.

At the end of the day, all that effort did pay off and I loved the entire experience. Sometimes, even today, I almost stumble out of my sleep at 5 AM in the morning to look for my sneakers to hit the club, and before I realize I still have the Regatta – Hangover, I head back to sleep

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