Brighton Beach

Ilford Hindu Centre had organised a trip by coach to Brighton – a town on sea shore on English Channel – for Ganeshji’s Visarjan on the September 12th 2010. They had arranged for 2 coaches (buses) with 50 seating capacity. Initially Uma was able to reserve 2 tickets only. Mr. Vijay, the organiser of the trip promised Uma that if there are any cancellations, he would offer the tickets to her first. (Uma had asked for 6 seats). Luckily on the 6th September he telephoned to confirm that he had 2 more tickets available by the grace of Maa Amba.

On the 11th we performed Vinayaka Chaturthi puja in a befitting manner. All the things required for puja are available in plenty in local stores. Aadit did the puja, while I read the mantras. This year we had an opportunity of doing the puja to golden pilliayar (a gift from us to Aadit for passing his GCSE with high grades—7.5 A* and 4 A’s).

On 12th morning we left our house and reached the temple at 8.20 am. The 2 coaches left the temple at 9.30 am. Our co passengers were mostly from Punjab and Gujarat community. On the way, many bhajans were sung in praise of Ganesh, Durga, Krishna, Sri Rama etc. and after a while antakshari was played mostly by the youngsters to pass the time.

Brighton is around 52 miles from Ilford. On our way to Brighton, the coach stopped at a service station —similar to our dhaba/wayside restaurant—where varieties of food shops, coffee shops, book shop and souvenir shop are situated. The management committee of the mandir had arranged for Indian style breakfast here. Delicious samosas, walker’s crisps (potatoes chips), juices in tetra pack, also garam chai followed by mysore pak were provided in plenty.

We reached Brighton around 12.30 and the coach stopped at Marina Drive. We had to climb two tiers to reach the main beach via steps (45 to 50 steep steps on each tier). The first two floors is a long corridor just like a balcony and the lowest floor is where the beach lies. Unlike other beaches I have so seen so far, this one is very unique. It is called shingles beach, because it is covered with pebbles—koozhangal (not sand). Walking on the pebbles is very difficult and to get to water there is another steep way paved. The pebbles were of all shape and size and I collected few as memento.

A white sheet was spread on the slope, about 6ft away from the water. Three Ganeshji idols were kept there—one from the temple and the other two belonging to individuals. The pandit of the temple did a elaborate puja to three idols . After the puja we were all given flowers to shower on the idols. Niveydham and Arathi were performed with the community prayer. Then the Ganeshji’s idol was taken into water for few yards before immersion was done by three individuals and their families. Sundar also had a good merits to do immersion of a small Ganesh idol.

Then we had lunch, brought from home, puliyodare and vadam accompanied by yoghurt(curd). We were told that we can go and explore the place and should be back at coach /bus stop at 4.30 pm. We walked and reached a road adjacent to the beach by crossing a level crossing. Yes, there is a mock up railway line on the beach, the station is in the middle and two electric trains with two bogies run between east and west and people , mostly children go on these merry rides. The distance is 1.6 miles.
On our way to Brighton, I saw many motor bikes passing us and all of them were going towards Brighton. On the reaching the beach road, we found out the reasons for so many motorcycles coming here. That particular day was the annual fare for motor bikes. Many manufactures displayed their products on both the sides of the beach road. Something similar to our mattu chandhai—cattle market. All the latest models of motorcycles were displayed , we had not seen such models anywhere earlier,.Latest models from Suzuki, Honda , Kawasaki , Yamaha , Ducati , KTM, BMW to name a few. Worth seeing.

There is a children’s park by the side of the beach with all the playthings including fountains. The small children were having a fabulous time playing on these fountains. These fountains work when a green button is pressed and to stop there is a red button. They were having showers like bath . These buttons are on the ground and the children operated them with their tiny feet. . It was real pleasure to see so many children enjoying themselves. The other play things were also unique.

We were surprised that throughout the stretch of beach there was only 2 food stalls , though there were few café’s and pubs around.

After tiring ourselves by walking we wanted to go to the top level. We saw a lift named Madeira lift. This lift is 400 years old and this was recently renovated by the council of Brighton. The capacity is 6 people and there is full time operator to man the lift. So we had an opportunity to travel on vintage lift as well. From the lift the bus stop was only 5 minutes walk.

We left Brighton at 4.30 pm and reached the mandir at 9 pm, due to heavy traffic on the road. This time we travelled via Gatwick, another air port around London. We could see many flights taking off and landing from close proximity.

We reached home and had dinner prepared mainly by Kirtana and Aadit and final finishing touches given by Sundar. We went to bed totally satisfied and had a sound sleep.

Bless us all, Ganapati Bappa.