<b>Subir Roy:</b> How clubby is the old club?

The annual general meeting of the venerable old rowing club on the banks of the Dhakuria Lake in Kolkata is usually a dull, scripted affair. Gentlemen in ties and jackets make predictable speeches and go through the ritual of passing motions, adopting accounts and recording votes of thanks. Then, once the polling is over (this year only one post was contested), comes the more robust task of downing the beer and doing justice to the sumptuous lunch.

But in this placid predictability, there is occasionally a flutter. A part of the ritual is a little speech by the captain of the boats (head of rowing), reporting on the rowing events of the past year and presenting the "captain's cap" to a veteran rower - which is a way of honouring prominent sportsmen of the past. This year, the captain chose to deliver an impassioned speech. Even as he bemoaned the members' declining interest in rowing, he made everybody sit up by highlighting the official neglect and its inevitable result - that is, a poor showing in regattas. He ended his speech rather dramatically by forewarning: we are here for rowing; if rowing ceases to exist, the club ceases to exist.

Before the members could even digest the full import of his words, the honoured rower from the past did his bit: he went on to draw a fascinating historical picture of how the club had changed over the years. He recalled that when he had joined over 40 years ago, there were barely 50 members, mostly white.

The club was always hard up for funds, sometimes having to pass the hat around to pay the staff. But the one big difference between then and now is that in those days, almost everybody rowed and club life revolved around rowing. He also recalled - with relish and sadness - how wholesome the food, cooked by the regular staff, used to be, and how the club's steak was the best in town.

But the comfort of nostalgia disappeared and members shifted uncomfortably when he dramatically switched to the picture of today. The club was prospering with nearly a thousand members and staff-cooked food had given way to professional caterers, who served a variety of cuisine at near-commercial prices. The bar was not only well appointed but was also intensively used. It was, for all practical purposes, a social club that also nominally remained a rowing club.

Unexceptionable as some of these things were, what was acutely sad to him was the decline in rowing. Despite ample resources, spending on boats and other rowing equipment was not as high as it could be; and what was most disheartening was the decline in performance in championships. The club had lost its raison d'être and was drifting, like a boat that had lost its moorings.

It was not as if the club had lost its memory. When a big tree fell in a storm and damaged the old dining room, the whole area was tastefully rebuilt and different facilities now bore the names of some of the club's prominent British members from another era. But obeisance to the past was, quite literally, nominal. Seeing the new facilities, one old-timer wryly recalled how the battle had been lost decades ago when the club decided to air-condition the bar, overlooking the objection of the active rowers that such luxury had no place in an athletic club.

There are aspects of the club that I have found difficult to adjust to. Efficient committee members, eager to give everyone a good deal, by working with drinks firms, routinely line up "offers", so that the first question a member often asks on coming in is: what's today's offer? This is far removed from my sense that the overriding feature of a club and its members should be familiarity. Everyone should know everybody; the waiters should know your regular drink and come up with it after a nod indicating that you wanted the "usual".

In a way, the club is a living institution, faithfully reflecting the times and the change that the country and its upper classes have gone through over the past couple of decades. There is so much more money around and the club, like the economy, is certainly better managed. Just look at the huge cash reserves shown in the annual accounts. But something is gone - a comfortable old-world feel, captured in deep chairs with upholstery slightly fraying at the edges.

Yes, there are many more members now, but very few treat the club as a second home. Attendance is very cyclical, which made the club president put in the one discordant line in his otherwise "feel good" speech. Where are the regular footfalls, he asked, when everyone knows that is what makes for a steady revenue stream?

subirkroy@gmail.com