Water carnival

As monsoon pours down, gushing river waters and the paddle over the babbles by world-class kayakers rejuvenate the spirits of people living on the western slopes of the Western Ghats, as the three-day Malabar River Festival featuring the International Kayaking Championship took to a start at Kodencheri in Kozhikode.

The residents of the region were dumbstruck by the fury of nature one year ago. The flashfloods during monsoon last year had turned Thusharagiri a fretful site with a series of landslides and landslips causing many deaths.

Thousands flocked to the International Kayaking Championship. Kayakers have been traversing down a series of rapids along the waters of Western Ghats as a legacy since 2013. Originated in the Ghats, the two rivers Chalippuzha and Iruvazhinjippuzha, flowing through Kodencheri and Thiruvambadi  panchayats, join River Chaliyar.

Kadakampally Surendran, Minister for Tourism, inaugurated the river fest on Friday in the presence of Seeram Sambasiva Rao, Kozhikode district collector, and Babu Parassery, district panchayat president. Kerala Adventure Tourism Promotion Society along with the District Tourism Promotion Council, district panchayat, and Kodencheri and Thiruvambadi grama panchayats jointly organise the international fete.

There are four events and the sportspersons winning the highest points in men and women’s categories will be crowned as River Raja and River Rani, and will be awarded cash prizes. In order to nurture kayaking talents, Madras Fun Tools with headquarters in Bengaluru gives training to those interested till the monsoon season is over. The sports lovers of Kozhikode are eagerly waiting to see whether the champions of last year, Amit Thappa and Daman Singh, will be outsmarted this time.

The competition includes a total of 74 kayakers from 11 states and eight foreign countries. Unlike last year, there are more Indian champions, especially from Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and other states like Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra and Indo-Tibetan borders. Italy, Israel, Malaysia, Nepal, Australia, America, Britain and Russia also take part in the championship, marking Kerala in the international kayaking map.

The survival aid — kayak or hunter’s boat — was used thousands of years ago for hunting, transportation and to resist extreme weather conditions by Inuit or Eskimos in Northern Arctic region. Similar to the whale skeleton the old man in the novel of Ernest Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea brought back on his return from the sea, skeletons were used as a frame for kayak while animal skin, usually seal skin, was used for covering up the boat.

In 1936, kayaking was introduced in Berlin Olympic Games. As the event has been recognised by the Indian Kayaking and Canoeing Association and the International Canoe Federation, the participants will gain exposure to the Olympic Games and Asian games.