Chennai day-- Let us stop cleaning Marina beach but keep it clean

 

Chennai means Marina, museum, Mylapore temple, the zoo though it is in faraway Vandalur, war memorials and many more. But it is the Marina that is special though there are other beaches in the city at Besant Nagar and almost every suburb. Not only it is the longest in the country but also the cheapest to visit and enjoy.

 Periodically students, NGOs, activists and even visitors go on a cleaning spree of the beach wearing gloves. No doubt they do it with a deep sense of passion, commitment and sincerity but the purpose is defeated in the very next holiday when huge crowd come and throw all sorts of garbage and we are back to square one.

 Not only Marina it is everywhere the emphasis has to shift from "clean it" to "don't dirty". Kitchen waste, garbage, old building material, spit and other human easing wastes though inevitable need to go the place it deserves than other places especially places that are meant to be kept beautiful. Since indiscipline is more a habit than discipline in the society be it traffic, punctuality, queues etc it is not easy for one to be disciplined when it comes to cleanliness alone more so when one goes to the beach to freak out and enjoy.

 Reformative attempts have yielded far lesser results than ideally desired in any indiscipline especially cleanliness where absence of facilities adds to the logic of defiance. If Chennai has to be clean with the symbolic Marina as the icing in the cake, building infrastructural aspects need more attention than periodic cleaning. Pick up a small area to provide the basics and enforce if needed with punishment to ensure cleanliness of that area, would be the correct beginning.

 Marina is blessed with huge sand deposits before the seawater that too for miles and deserves to be preserved like a valuable than spoilt. When nature chose to bestow such a gift to the city the city crowd is duty bound to reciprocate by beautifying the place. To begin with the pristine sand deserves to be free from bottles, coconut shells, waste papers et el and above all human waste.

 Coercion, compulsion, intimidation and force need not be the methodology initially. With CC TV cameras already existing for security reasons the same can be also used for cleanliness with the offender instantly being pulled up to rectify. While education to shop      keepers and providing basic amenities is a must, a giant screen to pull up the offender instantly would be a boon.

 NGOs which display the best of enthusiasm may shift their action from cleaning to preventing filth creation and with the help of appropriate Governmental agencies initiate checking the offense instantly. No easy job in a city where inebriated persons in sizable numbers also add to the problem.

 Yet Chennai as a city has its own charm and attracts outsiders both as tourists as also as migrants. When hospitality is inherent in the culture, what is out of place is the tendency to be not responsible in social behavior activities. Duty and accountability are two of the aspects of responsibility. In keeping Chennai clean the duty is of the citizen and the accountability is for the Government. Hence it is time to celebrate Chennai Day with our sense of duty rejuvenated.

                              

              HAPPY CHENNAI DAY TO ALL