It
was a lazy Sunday afternoon…after all the excitement of the Wipro Chennai
Marathon and a sumptuous lunch ( breaching my diet on a Sunday afternoon)…was
about to catch up a quick energy nap, when I realized that I promised Deepak
that I will be joining them to view from the top of the Lighthouse…. Yeah…In 5
minutes I got ready and my family were just equally excited to join me….my
daughter and co-blogger and my husband took the drive to Marina as it was
drizzling all around.
It
was such a peaceful and tranquilizing afternoon that you cannot ask for more in
Chennai …pleasant weather and excitement like a school kids ready for an
excursion.
I
was more excited to see our Chennai Bloggers friends behind the lighthouse…and
also the long queue; with loads of people in raincoats and umbrellas. Sashi kept telling that we may not be able to
make it…then we checked with the police who were guarding the long queue and he
gave us hopes that We Can Make It! Yaah….
We got in the queue after a refreshing Chuku Kappi …with cameras on the
shoulders...meeting the other bloggers who joined us by then and it was a
lovely little wait from Kamarajar Statue to the light house as we caught up discussing
the marathon...
Chennai’s
refreshing winds…the sailing small boats in the rain and my little one tempted
to eat off the samosas. Once we neared
the gate and looked back at the long queue behind us…the sense of making it was
more…a kind of adrenaline saying that we are ahead!
Once
we got the tickets and went into the queue inside. We realized people were
waiting for the lift. With the spirit
of marathon of the day…everyone opted to walk up…first thing they did was to
give me a sympathetic look as if ‘will this woman climb?’…I thanked PINK and my
fitness motivator none other than my husband who took small steps with me as I
made it to the top of the 9th floor without much of a hurdle….We
stopped at every floor to watch the sea and take a minute to enjoy the breeze
coming out of the windows. 
Same time I
could not stop scolding the irresponsible people who started to scribble on the
walls of the light house with their love stories, names and symbols….Common People.
Grow Up!
Reaching
the top was like conquering something…We were excited and the groups were
already clicking pictures not to miss even a minute of the time we got to stay
on the 9th floor with the kind of mad rush on a Sunday evening. The crowds were just swelling. We watched the Bay of
Bengal with awe. And the small colorful boats reminding us of the
romantic songs with the waves of our beaches.
The
cars looked closer than before. Probably after climbing up the Sears Towers
in Chicago…the
height was not the excitement. But
climbing up our very own Chennai Light house was the key. I showed a statue of elephants that got hidden
by a political hoarding…and Sashi was just quick to capture it in his lens. The
photographers did an amazing job of capturing every side of the city from the
top. The sea, the sand, the building,
the marina stretch, the Bay of Bengal with its
mighty clouds that evening just added to our happiness.
As
we descended down the steps, we felt like going around a merry –go-round….and
then the technical museum was in the cards. Half the party left to have the techie party
inside the museum as half of us took few extra moments to watch the crowd and
the lighthouse from outside, closer, merrier and brightening up our Sunday!
Then,
we had to leave and the rest of our gang took the steps in rain to the beach
for further fun. Had it not been for
the group I am sure, it would not have been the excitement we felt. How many of us get to go on excursion to
heritage sites these days being at work full time?. But taking a planned break
to do sweet little things add value to life…
As
we were about to say our bye’s, the plans for the next day long trip few miles
away from Mahabalipuram started to get discussed…and sure…we are in for this. This time with more bloggers and more fun!
Thank
you friends and CBC for making this visit memorable…
Dedicated
this post to my friend Lori Feret who is a vivid researcher on Michigan
Lighthouses and fondly called as Lighthouse Lori.
Lori Feret is an amateur photographer with a penchant for
lighthouses. She has been visiting and photographing them for about twenty
years. Lori is an active member of the Great Lakes Lighthousekeepers
Association, the U. S. Lighthouse Society, and several local lighthouse
societies. According to her, our
shores and lakes attract stories of old Indian legends, tales of wandering
ghosts from lost ships, sightings of ghost ships and accounts of sea monsters.
Lighthouses seem to attract many a story of paranormal activity
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