It’s the ultimate show of strength, stamina and skills by men in the Kuttanad region, where farming is undertaken on land below sea level, and country boats and rowing are a way of life.“They are loyal and workaholics,” he said. They are from Manipur, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar and even Jammu and Kashmir. The pay begins at `1,000 a day. And boat racing was this charming land’s USP for long.It was 64 years ago the seed of annual NTBR was sowed after Jawaharlal Nehru’s debut visit to Alappuzha. Most of them are trained by the Sports Authority of India and the Indian Army.Water in the Punnamada lake in Alappuzha catches fire on the “most scintillating second Saturday on the earth” when about 20 snake boats race in every August to win the Nehru Trophy Boat Race and lift the trophy, signed and sent by the first prime minister of the country 65 years ago. “We are from Srinagar.With a decline in farming as a vocation, Kerala boat race has taken a hit.“Kerala is full of friendly people,” said Mohammed Rafique who rowed for Town Boat Club Kumarakom this year. And winners of Nehru Trophy were treated as icons in region. Madhavan, Alappuzha district collector, who is also the chairperson of Nehru Trophy Boat Race Society, the organising body of the annual event. To top it, the club owners pay the rowers handsomely in kind.“The criteria in recruiting outsiders are nothing but stamina and discipline,” says Rocha Chacko, a young oarsman from Kainakari who rows for New Aleppey Boat Club, maintaining that he has no qualms about leading a bunch of Kashmiri rowers. “
They are better trained than us in dragon boat races, kayaking and canoeing.Kuttanad, sprawled over a 500-km-long coastline accommodating the biggest wetlands in the country, once boasted of land of envious oarsmen.“The trend of outsiders appearing in the Nehru Trophy Boat Race started after super-rich non-playing NRI businessmen with roots in villages took over the cash-strapped local boat clubs,” says Joseph Elamkulam, a boat race commentator. Enthralled by the beauty of the lake and chants of rowers, he had jumped into a wheel bearing snake boat owned by Nadubhagom village which had won the debut Prime Minister’s Trophy Boat Race held there. The rowers are provided nutritious diet of milk, eggs and meat daily.”The guest oarsmen arrive at least a month before the race and join the training camp. However, oarsmen being imported from other parts of the country are giving the tradition a fresh lease of life. As time passed, the reputation has taken a hit; it became bereft of skilled rowers. We would love to return next year as well.But the scene has changed, and at a speed that overtakes the fastest of the snake boat. Now, you would find oarsmen from many parts of India rowing at the annual race.
