{mosimage}After a gap of three months I went to our Silver beach in Cuddalore. It was called as the second largest beach in Tamilnadu after the Marina beach. Thats why the beach was called as 'Silver Beach', a sort of next to 'Golden Beach' in Chennai. But now it cannot claim that title because the ravages of Tsunami & the following rehabiliation activities had definitely altered the landscape of the beach. Previously the beach used to span right from the Periyar arts college and used to go about 750 mtrs to tough the shores. But due to commercialisation & concretisation, the length of the beach is now reduced to anywhere between 350 - 400 mtrs. The beach had lost its sheen now, thanks to encroachment and pollution.
The beach used to be its best when I was in my +2 and at that time I frequently visited there along my friends. Whenever I come home for holidays in my Engg. College days, I and my friends used to have fun in the beach for hours together. On the week days it used to be haunted sort of that except us there would be very very few people in that broad, pristine white sanded beach. On the Sundays the families used to visit the beach making it somewhat crowded. But the beach was so broad that I had rarely seen it flooded with heads, except the 'Masi Magam' festival, once an year.
Slowly with the passage of the time, thanks to the initialisation of positioning it as a tourist spot, the beach started having some permanent park structures like swing, inclined plane etc., and some permanent shops. There used to be considering amount of people in that beach at any given point of time. Still the beach was nice because of its sheer breadth and clean white sand.
Tsunami happened, Devanampattinam became world famous overnight. There are lot of construction going on to revamp the beach, so the beach is now concretised and filled with red soil to the maximum. The clean, pristine white sanded beach is nomore in sight. To whatever beach I had gone, I always used to feel that there is nothing better like our Silver beach, but this time I felt that even the dusty Elliad Beach in Besant Nagar is better than the Silver beach. Actually the Cuddalore town is lower than the sea level. Also people say that the sea level had increased considerably now that the water is slowly eating the beach. Chances are there that it could be true because previously it used to take minimum 15-20 minutes to get into shores starting from the beach sand boundary, but now it takes less than 10 minutes to get into water from the vehicle parking.
There is a point in the beach where the Gadilam River that divides Cuddalore into two merges with the sea & backwaters. Normally that canal will be filled with water only during heavy rain. This time when I went the beach, the beach was disconnected because of the backwaters in the canal. I felt like crossing it because I noticed a fisherman crossing the 5 feet deep canal, but as I went alone I din't dare. When I returned home, I felt a heavy heart because I am witnessing a death of a beautiful beach.
Till today {oshits} readers have felt sorry for the Silver Beach
Slowly with the passage of the time, thanks to the initialisation of positioning it as a tourist spot, the beach started having some permanent park structures like swing, inclined plane etc., and some permanent shops. There used to be considering amount of people in that beach at any given point of time. Still the beach was nice because of its sheer breadth and clean white sand.
Tsunami happened, Devanampattinam became world famous overnight. There are lot of construction going on to revamp the beach, so the beach is now concretised and filled with red soil to the maximum. The clean, pristine white sanded beach is nomore in sight. To whatever beach I had gone, I always used to feel that there is nothing better like our Silver beach, but this time I felt that even the dusty Elliad Beach in Besant Nagar is better than the Silver beach. Actually the Cuddalore town is lower than the sea level. Also people say that the sea level had increased considerably now that the water is slowly eating the beach. Chances are there that it could be true because previously it used to take minimum 15-20 minutes to get into shores starting from the beach sand boundary, but now it takes less than 10 minutes to get into water from the vehicle parking.
There is a point in the beach where the Gadilam River that divides Cuddalore into two merges with the sea & backwaters. Normally that canal will be filled with water only during heavy rain. This time when I went the beach, the beach was disconnected because of the backwaters in the canal. I felt like crossing it because I noticed a fisherman crossing the 5 feet deep canal, but as I went alone I din't dare. When I returned home, I felt a heavy heart because I am witnessing a death of a beautiful beach.
Till today {oshits} readers have felt sorry for the Silver Beach
