Catch the light

If you did not know that Chennai, over the course of its history from 1639, has had 4 lighthouses serving the city. The first was just a flame lit on top of the Exchange House in Fort St George (now the Fort Museum) and the second was atop a Doric column which is now on the premises of the Madras High Court. The third was a grander affair, right on top of the buildings of the Madras High Court itself. The one in use now was commissioned in 1977 and it has another 38 years to go before it beats its predecessor's record of the longest-serving lighthouse of the city. 

You can barely make out the red-and-white structure of the lighthouse in this picture. And it is not usual to get this kind of a view of our lighthouse. This photo was taken from a second-floor window of the All India Radio station in Santhome. 

Do you think they'd get to see the light beam from here?

City view

A few days ago, we had a view of the city looking north from the top of the lighthouse; this one takes it a few hundred metres higher - if you look closely, you can see the red-and-white band of the lighthouse at the bottom of the photo. 

The broad stretch of the beach looks glorious from up above. It is possibly less sandy than it should be; but let us hope it remains at least the way it is right now!

Headquarters of the force

The straight columns running along the northern and eastern sides of this building symbolize the discipline of its occupants - the Tamil Nadu Police. Like many other buildings along this stretch, this one does not have a specific name; it is referred to as the "DGP's Office" (and very often, also wrongly as the "Commissioner's Office"). 

The foundation stone of this building was laid by Lord Elphinstone, then Governor of Madras, in 1839. It was not intended for the police, or any government organization at the time of its construction. The Freemasons of Madras had had this built as their Masonic Lodge, and it was named the Lodge of Perfect Unanimity. Lord Elphinstone was himself a Freemason, becoming the District Grand Master in 1840 and the Provincial Grand Master in 1841. The Freemasons seem to have used this building until 1856, after which it was closed up for a while. The first Inspector General of the Madras Police, Sir William Rose Robinson used this building as his office in 1865.

Over the past 150 years, this has been the nerve centre of the police operations of the region: the Madras Presidency, the Madras state and now of Tamil Nadu. It was acquired by the government in 1874 - reportedly at a price of Rs.20,000/-, which was far lower than the Rs.25,000/- that it cost the Freemasons to build it!

The view north

The Marina Beach is supposedly 13 kilometres long, but that's the entire stretch from the edge of the Port of Chennai, all the way down past Besant Nagar. Somehow, I am unable to consider all of that as one beach, because the shoreline changes its character as it passes through Chennai.

This 4km stretch is most likely the beach that captivated Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff when he visited Madras sometime in the 1870s. He returned to Madras in 1881, this time as its Governor. One of the first things he did was to commence building a promenade along the sandy strip. On its being opened to the public in 1884, he named it the "Marina", from his recollection of the Sicilian beach - apparently an Italian general, when walking along the promenade with the Governor, mentioned to him that the beach reminded him of Palermo.

Since then, the Marina has been graced - and at times disgraced - by several projects. It was one of the key points in the city for public and political rallies. Thilagar Thidal, where Mahatma Gandhi addressed the people on his visits to Madras, is now just a memory. At the northern end, memorials to two former state Chief Ministers got the courts to declare that the beach should not be used for any other such memorials. At the moment, the sandy strip is going through one of its relatively cleaner phases; so, even if you are not able to go along all the 13km, this stretch should be good enough to rejuvenate you!

Another side

Looking from the north, at the first houses of San Thome. Just past the lighthouse is where the Kamaraj Salai changes into the Santhome High Road, and the beach narrows down to a sandy strip. 

A view of the other side coming up tomorrow...

Long throw

It is a little after 4 pm, but the sun is still quite warm. It will take a while for the beach to be filled up. So we went up the Madras Lighthouse to see what the view from up above was like. In its original conceptualization, the lighthouse was not meant to be a tourist attraction, so the viewing gallery is not really tourist friendly. It is a narrow strip running along two sides of the tower's triangular (remember, this is the only lighthouse in India with such a shape) cross section, and can hold about 30-40 people at a time. 

Of course we weren't allowed all the way up. The focal plane of the lighthouse is ~58m above mean sea level, and the viewing gallery is about 5-8m below that. Standing there, the view is quite boundless; Chennai is a flat city and there are not too many buildings blocking out the view, so with good eyesight (or a fertile imagination), one can see all the way to the city's outskirts. The light from here flashes twice every 10 seconds, but in an irregular manner; each flash lasts for 0.57s and the space between two flashes are staggered as 1.93 and 6.93 seconds. The light itself can be seen at least 22 (and up to 35) nautical miles away. 

It will be another hour before the light is switched on. In the meantime, the shadow of the building goes out about 300m into the beach - and provides good shade for several of the early beachgoers, and a merrry-go-round carousel as well!

Lighthouse trivia

I have posted earlier about Chennai's newest lighthouse, but this picture was too good to ignore, so I'm re-hashing some of the trivia around this lighthouse. 

It is the only lighthouse in India that has a triangular cross section (for the most part, at least). It is also the only lighthouse in India that has an elevator inside it. It's counterpart on the second point in the USA - the only lighthouse with an elevator - is called the Charleston Light, at Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. Incidentally, that is also a triangular building!

Throwing some light

Of course you know all about Chennai's lighthouses. But I did not realize until quite recently that the lighthouse on the Marina is still called the Madras Lighthouse, making it one of the few institutions that have not - and hopefully never will - changed over to the Chennai nomenclature. 

It is not just this lighthouse. The stretch of lighthouses along the peninsula, from Kovilthottam in the Kollam district of Kerala on the west coast to the one at Pulicat just north of Chennai falls under the jurisdiction of what is called the Madras District. Says who, you ask? It is the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships, that's who. The Madras District is one of the four that are headed by a Deputy Director General; the others being Jamnagar, Kolkata and Headquarters. 

Kolkata district has had its name changed from the former Calcutta. So too has Bombay, changed to Mumbai. But then, neither of them has a lighthouse named after the city - and that should make Madras stay on for a long while!

Latest lighthouse

Somehow, one has always thought of lighthouses as being cylindrical structures. Even though the Doric column which served as Madras' second lighthouse (the first was just a collection of lamps on top the Exchange building in Fort St George) is a dodecagon, it approximated a cylinder enough to be forgiven its twelve sides. The third lighthouse was once again on top of a building that was meant for other purposes; the fourth - and current lighthouse of Chennai, however, has the least number of sides needed for an enclosed structure.

When this lighthouse became operational on January 10, 1977, the range of the beam was increased from 24 miles to 28. At a height of 57m, it is decidedly middle-of-the-range for lighthouse heights (the Jeddah Light, at 133m is supposedly the tallest), so there is nothing particularly great about that. What distinguishes the 'Madras Light' - apart from its triangular building - is that it is the only lighthouse in India (and one of the few in the world) to have an elevator in the building!

For the trivia buffs - the only lighthouse in the USA with an elevator is the one at Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. Interestingly, that is also a triangular building!

The second lighthouse

If you think the column in the foreground is a completely un-functional piece of work, you would probably be right. The major functional element of this column used to be what was on top of it; 120 feet above the ground was housed the arrangement of Argand Lamps and reflectors, supplied by Chance Brothers of Birmingham, flashing signals to the traffic on the Madras Roads.


Much taller than its predecessor on top of the Fort Museum, this Doric column lighthouse was designed by Capt J.E.Smith. It took about 6 years to build it and it became fully operational in 1844, although it was in intermittent use as early as 1841. The column was placed in the Esplanade, outside the walls of Fort St George. A photograph taken circa 1855 shows the lighthouse with its crown; a crown that was given up to the city's third lighthouse in 1894!

Beam of justice

I don't think there is any other court of justice of which it can be literally said that it cast its beacon of light nearly 35 kilometres around. That honour can only go to the High Court of Judicature at Madras - that is because its tallest minaret, at about 175 feet, was taller than any other structure nearby when the court buildings were opened in 1892. Although I haven't been able to find anything to support it, my guess is that the minaret was designed to play the role of a lighthouse. It holds the record for being Madras' longest serving lighthouse, having been used for about 83 years, from 1894 to 1977.

The first lighthouse at Madras became operational in 1796 and was little more than a lantern with reflectors, housing a dozen coconut-oil burning lamps, placed on top of the Exchange Building (the Fort Museum of today). It was used for almost 50 years, when it was moved to the Esplanade, atop a Doric column built for the specific purpose of serving as a lighthouse. That column, which came into use in 1841, still stands inside the High Court complex, having given up its crown to be housed in the minaret of the Court. The Argand Lamps and reflectors, which began flashing on January 1, 1844, was supplied by Chance Bros., Birmingham and was replaced - rather, improved upon - in 1927 and by all accounts continued to be used until 1977.

So which is Madras' fourth lighthouse? All of you from Chennai would have seen it at the south end of the Marina, but that's subject for another post!

The minaret may not look so tall from this perspective, but an older post shows it standing head and shoulders above its cousins!

Morning on the Marina

I did not think that taking a picture of the early morning Marina would be so difficult. My lack of photography skills meant that whenever I pointed the camera to the sea, I got lousy pictures.

And then I saw these two gentlemen. You must remember that along its length from the Triumph of Labour statute to the Lighthouse, the morning Marina is the place for limbering up one's body. On any day, there would be hundreds of people doing various things to make sure their bodies are toned up. Not for them the air-conditioned, claustrophobia-inducing gyms and health centres that seem to have come up at every street corner. They are the people who crave the sun and the wide open space to refresh both body and mind. And so there they were, the slow walkers, energetic runners, t-shirt ripping muscle builders and all manner of exercise takers.

But these gentlement were unique. Looking quite different from each other in many respects, they were united in turning their backs to the sun. That set them apart completely from almost all the others. No one else seemed to be as sure of their 'look west' policy as the two of them. Taking a cue from their certainty, I pointed my camera in the same direction as they were facing - for much better results than I had had until then. All those lovely photos planned of the Marina will have to wait for another day.