The Amazing Sea Shell Museum At Mahabalipuram

The trip from Puducherry to Chennai is not very long unless you stop by some interesting places of interest on route. I loved the road trip, because it was very scenic, specially during sunset when the red globe reflected on the calm waters that ran parallel to road. There were many interesting places we saw on route but ‘India seashell Museum’ was the highlight of this trip. 

Seashells museum is located at southern side of Mahabalipuram. A short walking distance from 5 Rathas (just follow the sign) although we did take a longer route by our vehicle.

There was entrance of course, Rs50 for the seashell museum and Rs30 more for the aquarium and an extra Rs100 if we wished to click pictures. But we spend more money in the seashell boutique that had amazing handcrafted thing made of shells like vases, boxes, key chains, fridge magnets, flowers, frames and also wall hanging.

It was sunny afternoon, the beautiful bright white entrance with rock garden and pond on one side and large shell installations displayed in the compound and on roof top of each building was very inviting, the compound itself had tiles in the shape of waves with embossed sea-animals and fishes. All around were the murals and graphics of shells in different shapes and form.

Far end, at the back side was a sea food restaurant, which we didn’t visit cause most of my friends were vegetarians.

The AC salon has amazing shells of different shapes and sizes, all in their natural form.

They were just cleaned and exhibited in large showcases against the wall and the tiny ones in the center showcases. There were display of wide range of sea shells, about 40,000 of them, collected by the founder (K Raja Mohamed) of the museum and their history. 

How beautiful must be that bed of sea where they grow in cluster. The divers are so lucky to be able to go underwater and find them in their natural habitat.

This shell really amazed me. Inside the shell were compartments shaped like a leaf….nature to be admired!!

There were four sections of display and in every section was a large handcrafted piece.

The aquarium was a smaller room with just few fish tanks with rare kind of fishes.

But the most interesting part was the shopping area and fish pedicure corner.

Came back home with few souvenirs from the shell boutiques, that included a shell box too.

Our Children deserve a better future

Although Mumbai is my favorite city in the world, it fails me sometimes when it cannot keep itself clean.

It stinks.

Walk down any beach in Mumbai and it is filled with plastic bags and garbage. Sit in the auto rickshaw and you will see the auto fellow spit  bright red patch on the side walk, when he stops at the signal. Travel in the train and you will see the woman sitting opposite you munching on a snack, as soon as she has finished eating, the empty wrapper goes down on the railway tracks.

Are Mumbaikars dirty by nature? They get seriously annoyed if we point out their bad habits. How do we educate them?

The 5^th June is the world environment day and the theme this year is green economy.

So what is green economy?

Green economy is having a good quality of life with less environment risk and is ecologically green

It is important to inculcate the good habits of caring for environment and keeping it clean from childhood itself.  A child who grows up in a clean environment at home develops the habit of showing such etiquettes in the society too.  Children pick up the habits from their parents and from their grown-up with whom they spend most of their time.

How do we train a child if we have not been able to understand this concept?

The area of the earth is not going to increase, we will always use the same square foot of the space on this earth, but what will change is the natural resources that is inversely proportional to the number of people using these resources. If we don’t use our resources intelligently, we will be depriving our children of good quality of life.

With the redevelopment mushrooming in all parts of Mumbai and sky scrapers dressing the sky-line, there will be shortage of water, electricity and greenery if we are not careful.

How many birds do we see in Mumbai?

There are only crows that spread garbage from one balcony to another; there are pigeons that spoil our window sill and fly into the empty homes through broken windows to raise a family. But we don’t normally see those pretty birds that we often saw when we were young, birds like sparrows, cuckoo, parrots and many more?  

The birds have disappeared and have gone away to look for trees, where they can build a home and care for their young ones.

In the concrete jungle of Mumbai, children can take a very active part in making their environment clean and green. It should be mandatory for every child of 5year-old to plant a tree on his birthday, the tree could be planted either in the building garden where he/she lives, or on the street outside his/her house or at the park closer to his/her house. The tree should belong to him/her; he/she should take care of it throughout his life.

Children should be taught to use electricity stingily.  Why do we need to watch TV and still have computer on to socialize with friends on Facebook/twitter during the promos, use AC for all 24 hours of the day, have too many lights on, in short why must we waste electricity?

Children should be given the responsibility of switching off the lights when leaving the room and saving electricity and water in the house. Incentives like extra pocket money can be given to a child when the monthly energy bill shows low consumption.

When we go for marketing, how many of us carry a cloth bag?

Most of the time we forget to take a bag with us and then we have to buy a plastic bag which the vendor will sell. If we don’t stop using plastic, children will learn to ape us too. We have to discourage our children from using plastic; we have to teach them to say ‘No’ to plastic.  No plastic plates, cups, straws, caps, bags, and water bottles. Plastic is very difficult to dispose and when it goes down the drain, it could choke the drain pipe, if dumped into the sea, it could harm the fishes and whales.

source:google

We have to make them aware that we need to maintain a green economy.

They must know how to recycle the waste and create something useful.  They can be encouraged in environmentally friendly activity like making some innovative product from used electronic waste, of creating re-cycled clothes for fashion and cultural shows., of creating films on saving the planet and putting on plays on topic of sustainability.

On this World environment day, let us be the responsible citizen and let us set an example that our children can ape.