Whether one
likes it or not – Movies do create strong impressions ! often they do portray
places in a different perspective .. .. .. Madurai is often seen one with
sickles [arrivals] and angry villagers; North Madras [Vada Chennai] shown as
one with dadas clashing all the time. The
movie ‘Madras’ starring Karthi, directed by the now in news Pa Ranjith painted
walls red – as the storyline revolved around the wall in Kasimedu area – groups
fighting throughout to gain control over painting picture of its leader leading
to many deaths !
visitors at Marina on Kanum Pongal day
Chennai
aka Madras, often referred as Cultural capital has many relishing features. A thing of beauty is a joy for ever ~ and one
such is ‘Marina beach’ known for its
pristine beautiful sandy shores – running from Fort St George to Besant Nagar. This
beach has a long history, conceived in
1884 and christened by Mount stuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff, the then governor
of Madras – the beautiful beach is famed
for the ambience and rich eco system
though it stands a lot polluted
now. On the road side, many stone
statues, some of them installed during the Tamil World Conference adorn the
area.
Early
morning the famous Marina beach offers intriguing things. There are young, old, fast, slow, and varied
people indulging in chit-chatting, eating and drinking the various health
drinks ! that are sold on pavements. You
can see people walking, walking fasting, jogging, sprinting, skipping, doing
physical exercises, yoga, laughing out loud – more – all law unto themselves –
thinking and spreading that these are the passport to good health. You can hear
the sea, the sound of waves and nearer –
the waves jumping and touching the shore
and then submitting themselves to the shore but trying to comeback to conquer
again ! would be very interesting sight
– One can see monstrous ships anchored in the middle of sea, some
fishing boats and Sun coming out as a red ball from the Sea – all great sights
to behold. To those given to enjoying
Nature, the morning at Marina provides
innumerable things like morning birds, dogs – stray, and owned – local and
foreign breeds of various sizes; posh cars; bi-cycles; vast expanse of sand and
more…..
Long back
the great Sujatha wrote a short novel titled ‘Marina’ – the plot was woven
around misdeeds of a wastrel son of a rich father – it described the shady
night time of beach haunted by spoilt rich who get into unadulating crime…… the
climax would reveal not who the killer was but there was no murder at all
- yet the spoilt-broth in a poetic
justice would get arrested for some other crime !
In the evenings, Marina is different ! Over the years, lot has
changed – the ‘radio beach’ no longer exists – behind the Kannagi statue stood
‘Seerani Arangam’- the Thilagar Thidal place on which so many meetings were
held. Opposite to Presidency College, there was a promenade – a
radio kept on a pedestal, people would gather around to hear ‘maanila
seithigal’ – the news in Tamil. There used to be many shops selling sea-shells,
conches, and more – and of course lot of food ~from cut mangoes, sugarcane
juice, murukku, thenga-manga-pattani-sundal and bajji shops [a particular shop
run by an old lady – mami bajji shop was a great hit] - free water booth maintained by Rajasthani
Youth Association, the Mail van that used to collect letters at Marina in the
evenings till 06.30 pm, Public library ……………..and….. the aquarium ~not a big
one, rather small one – having some 30 odd water tanks and not many exotic fish
– have seen star fish, star tortoise and seahorses among other things that went
missing !!!
Perhaps what has not changed
is ‘the people; the vendors and their good-heartedness’. Being a long beach, there have been isolated
instances of crime and trouble too .. ..
yet, people do exhibit helping tendency and good-heartedness. Now read this report in
Times of India, Chennai edition of yesterday.
Representation pic of a seller at Marina beach
A woman tea vendor on Sunday handed over to
police a bag containing 45 sovereigns of gold jewellery worth around `9.5 lakh,
two cellphones and `10,000 she had found near her shop on the Marina. The gold
and cash were later handed over to the family of Tondiarpet resident Anwar
Khan. Amudha, the 28-year-old Chepauk resident who found the bag, won fullsome
praise from east zone joint commissioner of police Manoharan and deputy
commissioner V Balakrishnan.
“The sense of satisfaction and appreciation I
received from the police after handing over the valuables to the owner are
worth more than anything else,“ Amudha said later. She said she knew what
people losing such large amounts of gold jewellery underwent. “I hail from a
porr family and I can understand their suffering,“ she said.
Police said Anwar Khan had come to the Marina
along with a group of relatives who had arrived in the city from Rameswaram.
After taking in the sights at a lot of places in the city, Khan and the others
decided to go to the famous sands in the evening. After spending a lot of time
enjoying the sights and sounds on the beach, the family decided to go home and
got into a car. As he was about to start the car, Anwar Khan realised that the
bag containing the jewellery the family was carrying was missing. A sense of
panic set in and all of them fanned out on the sands, searching for it in the
darkness. Finally, accepting the fact that someone may have taken the bag, the
family lodged a complaint with the Anna Square police.
As they were waiting at the station, Amudha
arrived with the bag. She was on her way home from the beach after locking her
tiny shop when she found the bag.
The song in the film ‘enga ooru Madrasu,
naanga thane addressu’ was a hit – more impressive was its portrayal in a
Malayalam FM channel during Chennai floods – they used the song depicting
Chennai as the resilient place, people standing tall to help those in distress –
a very positive jibe. You may like to
hear it once, if not earlier heard. Here is the youtube link. :
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
20th July 2016.
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