Dreams of a common man

The Marina Beach.

The city of Chennai has many spots where people can go and enjoy, but there is only one place, where the rich, poor, and middle class people all go and enjoy in their own ways. It is the Marina beach, it is not only famous for being the second largest beach in the world, but it has got many other specialties, ,which no other beach in the world has. Marina is surrounded by many important places.


One is the Vivekananda house (the place where swami Vivekananda stayed during his stay in Chennai in 1902).
The next one is the Santhome church, which was built about 400 years ago and is of both significant and religious importance.
The third is the University of Madras building which is located just opposite to the beach. The fourth is the presence of the samadhis( memorials ) of two former chief ministers of TamilNadu ( Mr M.G Ramachandran and C.N. Annadurai). The other notable worth mentioning are the Marina swimming pool and the Aquarium located nearby.
If these are not enough, you have the Sri Parthasarathy temple, which is just located 1 m away from the beach. The temple is a thousand years old and is one of the most visited Vishnu temples.
If people love books, then you can find many of them in Pycrofts road,Triplicane or thiruvallikeni (near to the beach).

There are about 2 colleges near to the beach , one is the Queen Mary’s college ,which was the first womans’ college in Chennai, and the next one is the Presidency college ,which is rich in heritage and about 150 years old( DR Radhakrishnan studied here)

The speciality of Marina does not end here, she caters to the needs of all visitors and makes all people happy no matter who they are and where they come from.

Marina is home to several thousands of fisherman and woman. Most of the fisherman live In the nearby slums, but a small minority build their huts in the beach itself and live there facing the hot sun. The fisherman live as a joint community spending nearly 70% of their life in the sea, it is pathetic to see that they still suffer from poverty due to lack of attention, their only hope is the sea, which is their mother.

In the evenings, especially in the weekends, scores of people , poor and middle class come to the beach in thousands, everywhere you turn around , you can see a lot of scenes like 1) a poor man buying sundal (boiled gram) and murukku for his wife and kids
2) A man and a woman (mostly lovers) sitting in a remote corner and chatting to each other (no one know what they chat about).
3) Kids playing various games throwing all types of things and catching them.
4) The upper class people who come in cars and they spend the day buying ice creams, cool drinks etc for their family and sometimes you can see individuals boozing.
5) The famous Bajji shops that are making hot business selling all types of Bajjis and bondas. Not to forget the sundal wallah’s who sell sundal and murukku.
6) The chat shops, sugarcane shops, and the shops that sell fancy items made of shells etc making good business.
7) The group of college students, school students, and even elders playing cricket in the Beach lane.

There are hundreds of things that I would like to say more, but I cant because of the space constraint. No matter how shabby or dirty the Marina beach is, but it is still a wonder.

The biggest speciality of the Marina beach is that no matter who you are and what you are, once you go to her, you will never be disappointed, because Marina is like a mother and she takes care of the needs of all her children(us), that is why she is the queen of beaches.