A marina is a sheltered harbour where boats & yachts are kept in the water and where services geared to the needs of recreational boating are found. This is one of the explanations seen for the word Marina in WIKIPEDIA.
But the Marina in Chennai is the beach, on the Bay of Bengal and got its facelift sometime in 1880’s by Governor Elphinstone. After a few other ertswhile governments arranging for its beautification, now the current incumbent Govt. is also from its part is engaged in the beautification of the Marina Beach.
The above is one such displays announcing the same, in Tamil, for the area near the Labour Statue.
Marina was an integral part of my childhood as we played countless tennis ball cricket matches there during the holidays especially summer holidays. The places where we played cricket have now become car parks and the crowds have become so big these days that it doesn’t permit playing cricket anymore. We had identification names for the various locations within Marina where cricket was played, such as, Viveka Pitch (opp. Vivekananda House, Gandhi Pitch (near the Gandhi Statute), Avvaiyar (near the Avvaiyar Statute), Bharathiyar Pitch (near the Bharatiyar Statute).
It was fun all the way. One had to have special skills to play in those pitches which were essentially big car parks.
Our matches will start around 3 pm in the evening and will go up to 6 PM and we used to have three days two innings matches. There were “bet” matches (no betting or match fixing but played for a prize money or a tennis ball as the prize) or “signature” matches when the opponent captain has to sign the scorecard of the winning team.
It was fun on the run!
Ram: It should have been real nostalgia for you ….. and as your name suggests “Triplicani” this should have been an integral part of your demography.