Metro Plus
Chennai
Hyderabad
The campaign gains momentum...
|
The `Clean Marina' campaign seems to be attracting more volunteers everyday. PRINCE FREDERICK talks about the human chain formed recently and the involvement of school children in the task.
|
Coming together for a cause.
MARINA IS enjoying a domino effect vis-à-vis beach cleaning. Almost everyday you find a new group engaged in the activity. One Sunday, you find youngsters attired in shirts of fluorescent green and grey and donning flaming orange-coloured gloves, on the sands. They ensure that they do not spread themselves thin, by delineating a section of the beach with red cone markers. What soon unfolds is a scene of pre-possessing professional felicity.
The men in question are 34 loose litter collectors (LLCs) from ONYX. They are cleaning the Marina on request from the Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), which is celebrating the "Clean and Green Week". The SCB employees also don gloves and pick up litter.
"With beach-cleaning machines one could do a thorough job. There is a lot of garbage, which is buried underneath and cannot be removed by hand-picking," opines Vidya Swaminathan, communication officer, ONYX.
Volunteers cleaning the sands.
Another day, you find government organisations and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) joining hands for an awareness campaign. The organisers are: Tamil Nadu Tourism Department (TNTD), Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB), South Chennai Exnora and Citizens' Alliance for Sustainable Living (SUSTAIN).
As part of the programme, the Awareness Cell of the TNPCB stages a skit, which runs the gamut of people's attitude towards the Marina, as also the right attitude which should replace the present one. There is also a castle building contest for schoolchildren. Some of the castles exhibit great imagination as they are complete with turrets and moats and bastions. Interestingly, G.I. Joe finds his way to one of the castles!
"Exnora has been cleaning up the beach from the Light House to the Lloyds Road junction on a daily basis, from December 2. Shouldering the work are ten `beach beautifiers'. They perform the task in two shifts daily," says Naina Shah, vice-president, Exnora International. You learn that Exnora had earlier installed 40 litter bins and they disappeared from the face of the beach in no time.
Naina expresses her organisation's willingness to hitch its wagon to CRAG. She does not have to wait too long. For she gets to meet the CRAG chairman Dilip R. Mehta, at the Marina the very next day.
Human chain for a beautiful beach.
It is another Sunday morning. Marina looks brighter than the Doris day, as colour is the defining quality of the crowd that has gravitated towards the Gandhi Statue. Schoolchildren, corporate executives, social workers and other concerned citizens are wearing paper visors on which is emblazoned CRAG's battle-cry - Marinavai maathallam vaa! The group has assembled there for a CRAG-initiated human chain aimed at sensitising the public to the need to keep the Marina as clean as one would one's drawing room. The prime movers of the event are RPG Cellular, Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, Onyx, Parryware, Nandhinee Sweets, Apollo Hospital, the Rotary Club of Madras, Prism Public Relations, Devi Academy, TAMPA and Clean Tech.
The turnout calls forth as much surprise as does the legerdemain of the rain gods who stop in their tracks when it is time for the programme, despite going at full throttle from the wee hours of the morning. Though the early morning thunderstorm has dissuaded a number of potential participants from venturing out to the Marina, it turns out to be a blessing in disguise. There is now permission to form a human chain on the promenade, instead of in the service lane, which has pools of rainwater.
"This will give the human chain more visibility," exults a CRAG volunteer. He could not be more right. A number of beach-walkers join the human chain. And passers-by stop to find out what the ado is all about. The CRAG volunteers promptly distribute English-cum-Tamil leaflets on the "Save Marina" campaign. The attention of bus commuters and road-users is instantly drawn when the participants thunder: "I will not litter Marina. Nor will I allow others to litter the Marina. I'll give all my support to clean up and beautify the Marina. Marinavai Maathallam Vaa. Jai Marina. Jai Chennai. Jai Hind."
What follows is a symbolic cleaning of the beach with schoolchildren exhibiting the utmost enthusiasm. Some of them perform the task down to the wire; and they have to be called back, with vehement waving of hands, for a skit on littering, which is being enacted by the Awareness Cell of the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.
The group disperses after once again taking the pledge to work towards beautifying the beach.
A pleasant contrast
ALL THE blame for the Marina's ignominy cannot be imputed to indiscriminate littering, some of it is perhaps due to lackadaisical planning. Marina beach planners have not given the beach an insignia or defining character that would set it apart from all other beaches in the world. The qualifier, "second largest beach" which is put in the attributive clause every time Marina is mentioned is a bit too shop-worn to evoke feelings of pride any more. Moreover, it does not give any measure of what Chennai has done for the beach.
California has its 1.5-mile-long Venice Beach, which is called the "skating capital of the world".
Other absorbing activities on the beach include roller-blading, surfing, sailing and dining. Its greatest asset, however, is a boardwalk.
On weekends, artists and acrobats hold court on the beach, displaying their skills. All these activities do not just happen; provisions have been made for them.
Can we dream of a clean Marina like this beach abroad?
The beach's appellation comes from the vision of its original planner Abbot Kinney who wanted to replicate the Venice (Italy) ambience on the shores of the Pacific. Setting about his mission, he saw to it that the American version of Venice had 16 miles of canals. Since their creation in 1905, there have been glorious boat parades along their course. Time and change have now whittled down the number of canals to a vestigial count. However, the boat parade has survived the winds of change.
Thanks to an amusement park, called Ocean Park, the beach is called the "playland of the Pacific." That perhaps is its insignia.
Here is another beach, which has been given a uniqueness by its users. A group of islands called Bay Islands is scattered 30 nautical miles from Honduras, in the Caribbean Sea.
One of the Bay Islands is Roatan, which boasts of a beach resort called the Bay Islands Beach Resort. The resort has an internationally acclaimed dive centre. The beach has gained its reputation from the state-of-the-art diving facilities it provides.
What is Marina's insignia? Its defining character?
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
