Padma Rao Sundarji
On 21st May, a tiny news item informed us that a gardener in Gorakhpur was arrested and set free only after he paid one lakh rupees. His crime? Mowing the lawn of a public park – but too close to the local SDM practising her asanas. The puttering machine bust her nirvana and she made the ludicrous use of her powers by sending him to jail for 30 hours.
“I was practising yoga when the gardener started cutting the grass”, she said in her defence. “I asked him to stop as it was spewing dust, but he didn’t listen.”
My first reaction was much the same as yours. But look deeper: This item tells a larger, dismal story. Pollution is choking us. Urban living space is shrinking, as are recreational public spaces. Not everyone can afford fitness studios, so they must walk or exercise in a public park. Surely a fundamental right to be allowed to do so in peace?
It is not entirely the fault of the Gorakhpur gardener, of course. It is our municipalities that ought to determine more suitable timings for maintenance activities so that those looking to enjoy the peace of sunrises or sunsets can be satisfied too. But they won’t, because both our corporations as well as we citizens display absurd, proprietorial attitudes towards public spaces.
At the root of this disregard is a peculiar condition: Indifference to cacophony. Be it asatsang, a wedding, a morning azan or a suprabhatam, we must ensure at a decibel level of eight zillion watts that nobody can accuse us of not praying, marrying or communing over god, okay! The trunk call went out at least two decades ago. But we still shout over cellphones. We have no qualms laying bare our entire lives to one another at the top of our voices in restaurants. An aircraft is confined public space. But our cellphone speakers must let the planeload know just how much we love Yo Yo Honey Singh.
Take a walk through Lodi Garden on any morning. It is busier – and noisier – than Lajpat Nagar. Very Important and Chubby Persons boast on cellphones and, along with their seven security guards, take up the entire breadth of the walkway. The aunties of Lutyens screech out the proceedings of last night’s party to one another, as they huff and puff and speed-walk their way, simultaneously instructing their cooksvia Bluetooth on the night’s dinner.
“Parks are not meant for meditation”, the gardeners’ association in Gorakhpur, protesting against the arrest, had declared. But who or what, gives corporations the right to tell us what public parks are ‘meant for’? In Delhi, it is residents’ welfare associations, the closest accomplices and partners-in-arms of all municipal corporations.
Manned predominantly by retired bureaucrats (coveted by all RWAs for the ‘skills’ they bring with them from their long years of service), they introduce the same mindless bureaucracy that they cut their teeth on, to a residential area, and turn the same blustering power that they yielded in their lal-batti days, on to what are essentially public areas outside private houses: A colony’s parks.
In urban India today, there is no longer such a thing as ‘going for a walk’ in a public park with a companion or hobby of your choice. If you’re a couple in love, the moral police will lurk. If you’re with a dog, you’ll be chased away. And if you are a group of seven-18 year olds with cricket or football kits, don’t even think of entering a public park. Lovers, dogs and children who play sports are definitely Verboten.
Physical activity, a love for animals – some of the biggest joys of childhood have been struck down right under our noses by our very own neighbours, but who cares? Is it any wonder that our kids have their fingers on keyboards all the time?
Over the past 20 years, RWAs have usurped absolute control over all public parks. From tony Lutyens to busy South Delhi, the ‘rules and regulations’ governing public gardens range from the bizarre to the ridiculous to the downright snobbish. They are made and signed by the control-freaks within RWAs, with the municipal corporations in meek acquiescence.
But within the ban on sports-playing kids is another shocking sub-ban, most visible in the posh parts of the capital. In one colony where I resided, the RWA collected money and built a children’s playground on a public park. So far, so good. But it came with a rider: Only the children of the sahib log were allowed to use it during ‘peak hours’.
It is after the baba log were done, that ‘servants’ children’ could enter it. I battled with the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and succeeded in having a brazen sign to this effect removed, but only when I threatened to photograph and send it to a newspaper. I re-visited recently and saw some ragged kids stare longingly at the swings from outside the gate. Obviously, the disgusting – though now unwritten – rule was still in force.
The second intolerant and completely illogical ban is on dogs, but only on ‘pet’ dogs. Public parks abound with stray dogs, sunning themselves on benches, tickling their backs in flower-beds, sniffing in circles to find the best spots to poop, etc. There is little that corporations or RWAs can do about them. But since control-freaks must find a reason to ban some, any dog, all RWAs have turned on ‘pet’ dogs, even on leashes, in public parks.
The tony Lutyens colony with the children’s park took the dog-ban a step further. Some years ago, we residents received a letter from the RWA. It informed us that that NDMC sweepers were demanding more money to clean dog poo and asked for contributions from all dog-owners. So far, so good. But then came the rates: ‘Owners’ dogs: Rs100. Tenants’ dogs: Rs500′. I circulated the letter among fellow-tenants. We refused to pay more, asking, whether owners’ dogs gave out gold bricks as opposed to ours, and threatened the RWA with exposure. The letter was hastily revoked.
