Sunday 15 July 2007

The Broken Bridge







The Broken Bridge (real name unknown, at least to me), is located about a klick north of Elliot's (Besant Nagar) Beach. Once upon a time, it would have been a robust bridge used to cross the piece of beach, where one of the many pristine waterways of Madras joins the sea, without getting your feet wet. But now, its exactly what its name says- a broken bridge over a glorified and open sewer.

To get here, head to the northern most piece of road adjoining the beach. Once there, you should see a sandy road (more of a lane actually...) with a sign post reading "UROOR OLCOTT KUPPAM" (wonder where they got hold of such an aesthetically pleasing name??) and pointing vaguely towards a bunch of thatched huts. Drive on past these huts and you should find yourself at The Bridge, even if you are one of those directionally challenged chaps.

The impetus to get up at 4.30 am and drive all the way to The Bridge to see the sun rise was provided by my cousin Sriram and for company, we had Rajesh 'The Elder' Madhini who had thoughtfully purloined his younger brother's W810i to have a photographic record of our visit.

The first hurdle we faced was of course getting up early enough to see the sun rise. Especially on a holiday. Once we managed to do it, the next problem was driving. Although I love driving, it can become quite a handful when you have shifting sand beneath your wheels and a not quite lissome pillion rider. After getting through that hurdle with nothing more than a few skipped heartbeats, we finally sighted The Bridge. That's when we faced our final and biggest hurdle. The full blooded assault on our olfactory senses. But having travelled over other Madrasi waterways and boarding trains at Central, we were well equipped to handle this situation. After a minute or so of discomfort, the receptors in our noses developed a sort of specific insensitivity and we smelt nothing for a while.

Then we saw it... The Sun rising out of the sea! Looked very surrealistic with a few scattered clouds and the orangish glow. I was pretty surprised that a mobile phone camera could produce pictures with this clarity and colour reproduction. And i still am.

5 comments:

Karthik Krishnaswamy said...

awesome post man... and is that a reflection on the back of raju's rearview mirror? you chaps look like aliens in that... have you ever been to the mrts station near tidel park? we should go there sometime with an slr man. it's this unfinished concrete thing, which looks like the set of some underworld action movie.

Karthik Krishnaswamy said...

ah, no... i just realised it's the headlamp...

Srivatsan Gopinath said...

its the reflection off my very scratched helmet. havent been there yet but see it just about every morning on my way to college.

Karthik Krishnaswamy said...

ah... just saw the vega...

astute87 said...

Nice post man, wish i was there. I'm trying to think what I was doing while this happened.

And KK how can you not recogonise the helmet? I know that you are colour blind.... but, this is hopeless.