By Bharati Sadasivam
On Dec.30, I joined a small group of people at Elliott’s Beach to remember Karl Schmidt at the simple but loving monument to him by the sea.
As legend and Wikipedia have it, in 1930, Karl, a Dane working with the East Asiatic Company in Madras, died at this spot, after saving a young woman from drowning. He was 29. The then Governor of Madras, Sir George Frederick Stanley, built a memorial in his honour.
The full details of the events of that day may never be known. But what is obvious is that the memorial fell into a derelict state over the years, becoming a haunt of tipplers and loiterers. In 2014, the Greater Chennai Corporation restored and reinforced the structure, working with IIT Madras and REACH Foundation. It is the only heritage structure on the beach.
On 30 December each year, activists, concerned citizens, and journalists gather at this spot to remember him. Their devotion has remained constant. They are led by Spark, a civic forum, which came into being in 2012, with the push for the restoration of the Schmidt memorial.
A worker from Urbaser Sumeet unlocked the gate to let us in. We went around the monument, laid a wreath, and held aloft our golden electric bulb ‘candles’ that could not be blown out by the buffeting wind. Members of the group took pictures.
We tried to ignore the careless graffiti and other defacements on the monument walls. The locked gates do not stop people from clambering up the walls for a thrilling sea view. It is a popular selfie spot. “But nobody cares to know what this monument is, even if you try to tell them,” says Kamakshi Subramanyam, 95, the civic activist who led the initiative with T. D. Babu of Spark, to have the monument restored.
Most egregious of all, the security guards appointed by GCC with taxpayer money, she says, are never to be seen. Few beachgoers stopped to ask what we were doing. As we left, the evening breeze was delightfully cool, almost obliterating the food smells that came with it. I looked back at Karl’s memorial, its alabaster walls catching the setting sun. It was time to save it, once again.
Bharati Sadasivam is a resident of Kalakshetra Colony and can be contacted at [email protected].
