It’s perhaps Chennai’s `hottest’ stretch. The city’s pulse lies throbbing on its sizzling sands. It is the perfect option for people seeking space for all kinds of purposes – from families taking a break from routine to lovers, vendors, kite flyers or health freaks.
Posters showing beaches world over show sun umbrellas, sunning bikini clad bodies and tanned torsos surfing in the sun. Not here. This is a beach of a different kind and it is unique too. It is the Marina.
Long touted as the second longest beach in the world, old-timers who have been here can take a trip down memory lane. To when the sands were light and golden and a warm salty breeze washed over the Marina in the early evenings. Crowds were sights you saw at a rally and not at the beach. You took a leisurely walk down the promenade, wandered a while down the sands and let the cooling waves wash over your feet and sauntered back with damp garments and wet feet to sit for some time on the sands till it was time to go home. Yes, there was the occasional vendor who sold something intriguing – `thenga, manga, pattani sundal’ he would tell you as you smilingly wished him away.
Today, the Marina is possibly the biggest open air mela in the city. Weekends become one huge jamboree, as crowds mingle sellers of foodstuffs, trinkets, balloons, toys and more. If you are unlucky, you could get stuck in what could be a huge crush of everything that’s human – you have inadvertently stumbled into a public meeting of some sort and really, you should have been warned by the crawling traffic.
Governor Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff, if he did visit the Marina some time in the present, would have been be astonished and surprised. For the Marina that he created in the 1880s was a beautiful promenade – with trees, gardens, ornamental flower beds and more being added on subsequently. The governor, who had been charmed with the possibilities offered by the city’s beach wanted it to be made a “lung… for thousands… in quest of cooling breezes from the sea.”
The quest for the cooling breezes is what draws the hordes to the Marina even now. But willy-nilly, this “quest” is no more a quiet one. So those wise to the ways of Chennai’s most famous beach have created their own space within its lively portals. Here’s how:
Mornings. It’s time for the walkers, the `exercisers’ and the health freaks. The Marina begins with a bustle, as walkers vigourously walk their way up and down the well-kept promenade in the freshness of the morning light. As they walk, they pass very famous statues, by now synonymous with the Marina. Among them are The Triumph of Labour and Homage to Gandhiji. A statue of the legendary Kanngai who burnt Madurai with her righteous anger once graced the lawns of the beach – only to vanish overnight a few years ago!
A not-to-miss unique factor here in the morning are the `health food’ vendors who dispense everything from carrot juice, soup and a wide range of salads along with coffee or tea.
Afternoons. It’s hot. The sands fairly radiate with the heat. But the Marina still lives in the consciousness of those seeking romance within the green confines of its lush lawns. Strangely, in a city that is fairly inhibited in its social mores in the more public places, the Marina is an exception. Lovers can be caught in rather passionate clinches here, never mind the heat or the open space!
Evenings. As the cool breeze beings to waft from the sea, this is the perfect time to seek the Marina to unwind on weekdays. Yes, you will share beach space with others but well… in Chennai, it’s perfectly okay to `adjust a little please’!
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