River rafting – Making rapid strides

A French team was there on a special invitation from Indian River Runners Association, an organisation actively involved in popularising and promoting white water sports. France will be hosting World Championship in the water sport. Thus, the aim of their trip to India was to gather experience and knowledge about the sport. But the guests were simply overawed by the talent India has in river rafting. Even though the sport in not very popular in India, the French participants felt the standard of Indians was quite impressive.

“We have so far been kayaking and canoeing in small rivers in France. But navigating the Ganges is simply different,” said Eric Marlier, a French participant. The French are planning to invite few teams from India to promote the sport in their country. Ironically, the sport needs promotion in India itself.

The events at Four Square White Water Challenge were mainly dominated by teams from paramilitary forces. The prime reason being that the adventure sports have an important place in the Services.

“The sport is not professionally managed in India and we are amatuers in the field,” said L. Himmat Singh of Manipur. But since it is considered as an adventure sport, river rafting mainly attracts the tourists and the fun loving tourists and students who camp around the hills of Garhwal for rafting, kayaking and canoeing.

Apart from Ganga, other rivers like Sharda, Baes and Yamuna have been identified on professional basis for rafting. The IRRA regularly conducts training programmes for students and sport lovers. The popularity is slowly catching up and it can be seen from the fact that out of the 20 participating teams in the Four Square Challenge about hal a dozen were amateur sides comprising of college students. “It’s an all together different sport. And it is not all that easy to negotiate through the rapids in the river,” said a Kashmir University student, who was part of the univeristy team from J&K.

White water refers to the turbulence-triggereed foam. The rocks lying beneath the water surface obstructs the river currents and as a result the water rises sharply above to pass over the obstacle before falling down abruptly making big waves, which is known as rapid. White water sport may be a photographer’s delight and an interesting show for the onlookers but the real action is not all that simple. The strong current, rapids and the rocks actually make things difficult. But with the sport catching up, the youngsters today are ready to brave all the odds.