The first activity destroys the cultural sense and moral fibre of the youth, while the second one seriously endangers their physical health and well being.

The third activity alone has a positive outcome, but unfortunately of late opportunities to pursue them have been shrinking. The arbitrary ban on playing cricket and ‘any game played with a ball’ on the Marina, and its enforcement by armed riot police could sound the death knell for the only healthy activity pursued by the city youth.

A Roman proverb comes to mind: ‘mens sana in corpore sano,’ meaning ‘a healthy mind in a healthy body’. While we have known for a long time that exercise can protect physical health and well being, it now seems that exercise may help preserve mental health as well.

In the event, it is unwise on the part of the city Corporation to impose a blanket ban on sports activities on the beach under the guise of ‘safety of the beachgoers’.

The least the concerned officials could have done was to earmark certain portions in the vast and expansive beach sands for the youth to run, hit and sweat it out. This would have ensured ‘healthy minds in healthy bodies’.

There was some vague mumbling that Chennai officials were only following in the footsteps of their counterparts in Rio de Janeiro. Nothing can be more absurd as a recent posting on the Internet would reveal: “Beach culture is big in Brazil, and nowhere is it bigger or more impressive than Rio de Janeiro.

It’s not just about bathing, it’s a social thing, a chance to meet, socialise and play sports like volley ball, soccer and surfing…...” Beach volleyball, now an Olympic event, is the toast of Brazilian beaches.

Beach soccer started in Brazil, more precisely on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, and has grown to be an international game. Soon it may enter the Olympics, perhaps as early as 2016, when Rio would host the Olympic Games.

The Corporation of Chennai offered their 228 playgrounds as alternative venues to play cricket. But most of them are unfit for playing any game let alone cricket. In fact, one of them doubles up as a lorry-parking lot. While 90 per cent of Corporation playgrounds cannot be used to play cricket because of their size and shape, the rest do not have enough space for a sport like cricket.

The fact is that availability of public open space for fresh air, sports and recreation in Chennai is abysmally low - not more that 2 per cent of the land area as per the Second Master Plan. Most of these are in restricted areas like Deer Park, IIT, Theosophical Society, Kalakshetra Foundation and Island Grounds, which are not freely accessible to the public. Playground in schools and colleges are available only for their students.

Even these spaces are shrinking and in many schools/institutions almost non-existent. The beach appears to be the only large public open space.

Public parks in Chennai are small and public playgrounds scarce. CMDA’s Development Control Rule provision for leaving 10 per cent of larger plots to be developed (1 ha and above) as Open- Space Reservation (OSR) for parks and recreation is observed more in its breach. Most of the OSR areas are either not handed over to the local bodies or used for captive purposes. In some cases moneyed interests have even taken ‘patta’ for these ‘open areas’ from the revenue authorities and records are conveniently destroyed or lost.

The Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu has also failed to provide adequate sports facilities for the youth.

They seem to be content with maintaining some stadia that are unevenly distributed and woefully inadequate for a large metropolis like Chennai.

The root cause for all this is the hijacking of explosive urbanisation as a profit-raking real estate cum construction business. As a result, there has been a 60.2 per cent reduction in open space in the city and a 95.8 per cent reduction in the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA) over the last 30 years.

Unless this trend is reversed and an open, green ambience is assured in the CMA, there will be no space left for the youth to play and they would perforce be driven towards the already overindulged cinema halls and TASMAC shops.

Indeed, a veritable tragedy is waiting to happen!