Dirtying Hands for Cleaning Beaches

CHENNAI: Bharathi Scouts, along with the Chennai Trekking Club, organised a mime show at the Elliots Beach on Saturday to spread awareness on maintaining the beauty of beaches and the activities that destroy it.

The mime enacted by the group was titled Karaipaduvom Nam Karaikaga (Let’s soil our hands to save the beach) and highlighted five major ways by which the cleanliness of any beach gets affected. It showed the audience the ways and means to safeguard beaches and prevent them from getting contaminated.

Karaipaduvom Nam Karaikaga was the eighth of a group of 40 shows titled Inainda Kaigal, being organised by members of the Bharath Scouts as part of their 40th anniversary celebrations. “We have taken initiatives to spread awareness about traffic regulation and smoking also. We hope to gather more volunteers through these shows,” said Shankar, a member of the scouts mime group.

The mime show was a forerunner to the coastal clean-up that happened on Sunday. Masu from the Chennai Trekking Club said that such clean-ups had been happening for the past five years. “The number of volunteers has been increasing every year, Last year, it increased from 5,000 to 10,000,” said Masu.

The crowd enjoyed the show and felt it sensitised people towards their responsibility to maintain cleanliness in beaches. “It was a different way to create awareness as opposed to the flash mobs that are prevalent these days. It was definitely impactful as they enacted the actual scenes with placards and props rather than a few dance moves,” said Ananyaa D, a student.