Figurative boating

With around four hundred students on water The College Of Engineering Pune will host one of its oldest and most impressive events,Regatta,in its eighty first year.

Based on the theme of river pollution awareness there are also ongoing events to support the initiative with students undertaking river bank cleaning from Holkar bridge to Sangam bridge as well as a display of prototype of water treatment plant prepared by the civil engineering students at the end of Regatta.

The various patterns are arrow formation,tele-mathes,kayak ballet,diamond formation,punt formation,mashal dance,wharf dance and lighted kayak ballet.

With some having an impressive lighting the boats flaunt a visual treat and further more formations like mashal and tele-mathes produce fire displays during the show. The former is performed on the land with splendid reflections in the water. Kayak ballet is the most unbalanced making its participants most susceptible to tumbling in the river. “The show starts with arrow formation which is also one of the oldest and progressively we have been adding more. This year we have organized several other activities on the backdrop related to the awareness on water pollution. Screening documentaries,holding a river walk,river cleaning as well as an exhibition of around ten NGO s with their research and statistics on pollution on 21 and 22 will provide major insights,” adds Azam Sheikh,Regatta Secretary COEP Boat Club.

The array that will be held on this Sunday 5 pm onwards at COEP’s Boat Club has the entire Regatta gang constantly practicing for four hours every dawn and dusk with ten organisers training them on the skills.“We will execute on a special theme,disclosed a couple of days before the show in accordance with the central theme. I am a part of tele-mathes that has around ten boats like Simby,Kayak,Wars and so on and will display a number of moves with fire for the twenty five minute performance,” adds Dixit Chopra a second year IT student.

The first year students essentially form the punt formation,which is the biggest and has the maximum participation of over hundred members. Adding on the configurations Bhamre says “We would be presenting over twenty six shapes in thirty minutes. Only practice can help hold to the techniques,battle the winds and so on. There are around eight of us on each punt. Some of the punts are as old as eighty years and meticulously maintained. There will be sixteen of those twenty-five feet long boats,disperse and harmonize to form various shapes. Octagon is one of the standard formation,” For the rest,wait on till this weekend.