It all depends on perspective. To us, the city’s beaches are open lungs, where we can walk, enjoy the air, wet our feet in water and return refreshed. To the fishermen, this is where they earn their living, bringing in the day’s catch and then selling it. To the Government beaches are the plaything of an idle hour, a venue where they can try out their harebrained schemes, always with a view to eventually grabbing the space and converting it into prime real estate. The latest idea, to permit weddings in the beaches is one more in a long list.
As per the latest news reports, Tamil Nadu Tourism is pondering over the possibility of opening beaches along the ECR for weddings, for a fee. The amount in question is as low as Rs 10,000, no doubt with a view to making it affordable for everyone. The point however is not what strata of society is going to use this. It is the fundamental flawed principle behind the idea. No matter what our economic status be, we in India are known for our capability to generate trash at our events. And what is more, not dispose off it responsibly but let nature take its own course, by which we mean bleaching by sun, washing by rain, blowing by wind and consuming by animals, the rest going to our already bursting landfills. Has whoever it is that came up with this idea even thought of the consequences of what will happen if the beaches are made available for weddings?
The trash apart, our weddings are known to be noisy. There may be regulations on amplification but given that these are most often given the go by in practice, can we imagine what the noise levels will be? Why should residents around beaches suffer this? We need to add other attendant nuisances – traffic jams, stray animals attracted by food, drunken behaviour, posters congratulating the newlyweds and the picture is complete. And then there is the small matter of the nesting Olive Ridley turtles but we don’t expect anyone to bother about them. What matters is that tourists and wedding celebrants in the city should have a new and exciting venue!
This is the latest assault on our beaches. We have already had the memorials, now fortunately contained within the available space. Then we have had the mushrooming of shops, all in the name of catering to the masses – let us not forget that our beaches have been around for centuries and open to all. They are not elitist in any way and our masses did not ask for shops, until these became available. The shops are now a problem that will not go away, requiring legal intervention. What we now have is a fait accompli.
We have then had the Blue Flag fiasco which was most unnecessarily foisted on us. What was once a large and clean beach is now divided – a paid and therefore presumed to be clean section, certified by the blue flag and the other, for free and therefore unregulated and perforce the repository of all rubbish. Who has created these elitist divides? And we have had the forever ongoing construction and widening of the loop road, against which the fishermen protested. Now, realising that they have to live with it, they have turned it to their advantage – all along the Loop Road are double-storey seafood restaurants, all of them without permit. When everyone else can break the law, why not these people?
The wedding scheme has been protested by local residents. But our beaches need watching over.