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The second longest beach?
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Is the Marina, as it exists today, "the second longest beach in the world"? Nevertheless, it is a beach to be proud of, though that hasn't prevented us from desecrating it.
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JUST ACROSS the road from what was once Chepauk Park begins what is considered the beach of Madras and which is generally referred to as Marina or Marina Beach. It's a beach very much in the news now because of the sorry state it is in and the attempts of several organisations to clean it up, their foremost aim being to prevent it being used as a dhobi ghat and as "the second largest open air lavatory in the world".
All this "second longest" business has for long had me wondering what was "the longest". I never did get an answer, but I occasionally have heard Copacabana Beach in Brazil being mumbled. Never having seen it, I can't attest to the accuracy of that claim, but I've seen a few of New York's popular beaches and don't think they are any shorter than the Marina Beach we see today. Perhaps then the claim on behalf of the beach of Madras refers to another age, before the official claimants started despoiling a part of it with fishermen's tenements and Foreshore Estate. That beach I remember from my youth as stretching from the Cooum mouth to the Adyar Estuary. Now that's a beach that's really in the championship class for urban beach.
The southern end of it is a stretch I'll never forget. There used to be some palatial houses along that stretch, behind where the tenements have come up, and the small gates leading from the rear gardens of those houses opened on to some of the most spectacular sand you could ever wish to see. I was a guest in one of those houses for a few days as a boy of eight and, the first evening, the three children of the house and I went out to the beach at the rear of the house to play. One of the three suggested we dig a pit, which we did. He then suggested I sit in it. And the next thing I knew, the sand spaded out was being filled in, leaving my head alone, most unostrich-like, sticking out. And then they ran off, leaving me screaming for help as darkness fell. It says something for how deserted the beach was in those days that no one came to rescue me till our mothers came looking for me. And hear my stories of the night. That the idea-boy became a godman and that I became a storyteller must tell a psychiatrist something about the experience.
Certainly, whenever I think of Marina beach today, it is that southern stretch of sand that I recall. And that memory keeps making me insist that the Marina Beach as it exists today just cannot be "the second longest beach in the world". It nevertheless is a beach to be proud of, but pride hasn't prevented us from desecrating it, though some attempt continues to be made to maintain the promenade, gardens and driveways. And that brings me to my second question: Who developed the promenade and when?
When Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant-Duff — named after one of those Raj officials committed to contributing to India — visited Madras in the late 1870s, he recalled in his memoirs, "Our way lay first along the shore and made me think of the very sensible answer made to me when I was talking about going to India. `Go', he said, `For God's sake go. If you spend only twelve hours on the beach at Madras, it will be a great deal better than nothing'." And so it was when Grant-Duff returned to Madras as Governor (1881-86), his most significant contribution was the development of a handsome beach promenade. Shortly after declaring it open, Grant-Duff wrote home, "We have greatly benefited Madras by turning the rather dismal beach of five years ago into one of the most beautiful promenades in the world. From old Sicilian recollections I gave in 1884 to our new creation the name of Marina; and I was not a little amused when walking there...with (an) Italian General, he suddenly turned to me and said, `On se dirai a Palermo'." It had reminded him of Palermo. I only hope Palermo's beach has not deteriorated like ours. I also wonder whether it has additions similar in concept to what we have put on ours.
An aquarium, the country's first, was established here as one of the first additions in 1909. It's today very little better than the dark dungeon it was a few years ago. Anna Samadhi shortened "the second longest beach in the world" in 1970 and the MGR Samadhi further shortened it in 1988. Despite the fact that both are well maintained, I hope there are no more beach shortening exercises ahead of us in the future. Debi Roy Chowdhury, that great artist who at the age of 30 became the first Indian Principal of the Madras School (now College) of Arts and Crafts, contributed two striking embellishments to the promenade shortly after Independence — The Triumph of Labour statue (reminiscent of that famous World War II photograph of the American Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima) and the Gandhi statue — in `march to Dandi' stride — that's recently been duplicated on the lawns of Parliament House.
These works of art were followed in 1968 by the statues of the `greats' of Tamil Literature to mark the first World Tamil Conference. Avvaiyar, Tiruvalluvar, Kambar, Subramania Bharati, Bharathidasan and the Europeans Bishop Caldwell, Pope and Fr. Beschi (Veeramunivar) have hardly had justice done to them. Certainly no one stops to admire them — nor did anyone stop for the odd one among this galaxy of those who, so to speak, put pen to paper. Kannagi, the heroine of the Silappathikaram, certainly had more attention paid to her when she `vanished' than when she stood amongst those who were placed on a pedestal for reasons rather more different than in her case.
The latest addition to these little-noticed embellishments on the promenade has been Kamaraj — and he too has not exactly been made a work of art. Neither has the new lighthouse that sticks out like a sore thumb. But works of art or otherwise are not what the Marina needs. All it needs is Nature's bounty to be cared for as much as the promenade Grant-Duff created and which others in Government have, over the years, despite all the changes, maintained to a considerable better degree than the beach.
S. MUTHIAH
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