Marina Bitch oops....beach

I was presented with this opportunity to visit Chennai. This was my first entry into the south city. I did have a preset perception of the city already, specifically Marina beach.

On learning about the convenience of the travel from my hotel to Marina, I decided to board the local public transport, that kind of lets you feel the pulse of the city and its people. The roads were good enough for the traffic at hand. It was a little hard to find someone knowing a common language, thats how I found myself well past the Marina stop (free excess trip though :)).

Determined not to have another excess drive, I took care to sit next to someone who looked likely to share a common language with me. A chinki guy(chinku?) from north-east saved me with his english.

It was a long walk from the road to the so much crowded beach. No wonder the sea was not to be heard in the mob noise :). With my lee coopers on, I walked as though each of my legs were tied to heavy sacks of sand. If this is what a walk is to be, I would never "walk the talk" agian...LOL

The sloppy walking with those heavy steps were complemented well enough by the beating sun and shabby surroundings with all the throwing. I bet garbage collectors have a bright future on Marina. I saw things like paper wrappers, plastics, left over fish dishes (on which a large number of crows pounce to get their pound of flesh). I thought "I'm at the most littered beach in the world!".

No wonder there were all sort of stalls on the beach to supply such never ending garbage. Shops that sell articles made of shell, funny sunglasses, toys, clothes, fried eatable, boiled eatables etc etc... Another stall had tens of helpless balloons hung on a board waiting to be shot. The long guns with fillers probed me to have a go at those innocent balloons. I decided not to embarrass Abhinav Bindra :)

But this stall takes the cake. It had all the tamil super stars (right from Rajni saar till hot Asin and hotter Thrisha) lined up for you to get flashed with. Yes, they were all life size portraits. Isn't it quite an "IN" thing to get clicked when you have Thrisha by the side with Marina roaring at the back (if worse, there is a possibility that the background could include some peeing in the open :) )

And here I was finally at the sea. Serene with the waves following a pattern known to none. Some people had found their playground at the sea shore, having a dayout with family or an odd ones with their girlfriend (they are odd not to indicate that they have a girl, its just that they were less numbered). Those in the sea playing "throw-coconut", truly south indian version of throwball.