Shivaji Park, Mumbai.

          I spent a few days in Maximum City. This time I discovered that what I thought was a heritage area, Shivaji Park near the Mayor’s Bungalow, isn’t so. It’s famous for political rallies, test-cricketers and crazy crowds during the Ganapati festival and Ambedkar’s punyatithi (death anniversary). It also has a Vyayam Shala (literally, exercise school) where for decades local children have learnt malkhamb, gymnastics, ropework and ethnic games like hututu (kabaddi) and kho-kho. Both the latter games require no equipment, but a high level of agility, alertness, stamina and teamwork. Pity they aren’t promoted by business-houses that spend good money on consultants to teach those skills to their staff/managers. At the opposite end of this Shala is the Scout Hall which is majorly rented out for inexpensive weddings and exhibition-cum-sales. In between these two are a Keraliya Sports building, a Bengali cultural centre, a statue of Shivaji (understandably, for the Park’s named after him), a money-making temple, and very recently, a memorial for Balasaheb. (“Bala who?” a young someone asked me. “Thackeray,” I replied, “of the Shiv Sena”). Once feared in India’s commercial capital, today even old-timers can’t recall his full name. Memorials reduce people to yet another cornerstone. No amount of police presence can stop pigeons and dogs from doing ‘their thing’. Sad, no? On the eastern side, the SP Club has crept outside its old boundaries. The children’s play area is fenced as is the nana-nani park. A free-for-all outdoor gymnasium is sandwiched between the aforementioned two. A football coach charges a fee to use a self-limited space to teach children the game. Unofficial encroachment is overlooked/ignored by junta and officials alike. (Yes, there is something called official encroachment, like when the Muncipality converts a play-and-recreation area into a parking lot, but of that in another article.)

          The Park has a short wall or kutta on which people sit, hip touching hip, for they are many and space is limited, chatting with their friends. The energetic lot (hundreds of them) walk, run or jog round and round its periphery. Like the City, the Park doesn’t sleep. At 4 a.m., there are enthusiasts practicing for marathons. By 7, there are so many people rushing around it that I stared fascinated by the fact no one was banging into each other. Social discipline at work: those going one way weren’t interfering with those coming from the opposite side. I’ve seen the same sense of ‘stick to your lane’ during unbelievable rush-hour human traffic outside Churchgate/Dadar/VT (can’t bring myself to call it CST) stations. (Attention, people crossing the road at Porvorim Circle or near the Mapusa bus-stand, or entering/exiting ferries: there’s a lot you can learn from the Mumbaikars.

          Food. Where there are Indians and crowds, entrepreneurship is born. Health-fads sell. Karela-juice for diabetics, bhopla juice spiced with lemon and salt for cleansing blood, carrot juice as a prophylactic measure for eye-related problems, sugar and salt dissolved in plain water for the those who sweat too much, concoctions made of exotic or citrus fruits for the sweat-challenged, milk-shakes for those who prefer to skip breakfast, peeled garlic and haldi-powder for instant-and-guaranteed wellness, etc. Those with a fetish for freshly-made breakfasts have a choice of poha, puri-bhaji, cucumber-sandwiches and idli-chutney packets to carry home or eat then and there.

(With medical education and cost of diagnosis/treatment in private hospitals so high, the government must really encourage these illness-preventing/curing ideas. Who knows, with a bit of PR, the UN and the US and other such big names might get impressed with what’s happening in India in general and Shivaji Park in particular.)

Everything’s made in nearby kitchens by housewives with a zest for earning pocket-money and sold in small containers or polythene bags by helpful husbands/brothers/sisters-in-law, from steel dabbas that are housed in big bags, small cars, scooter-dickeys or even dangled from bicycle handles. By 8 am, mostly everyone’s gone back to office/bank/hospital/school. The retired lot hangs around chatting. Actually, the number of retired people is reducing, what with an increasing number getting involved in voluntary work. Or relocating to Goa.

When I told Bai Goanna about Shivaji Park, I discovered that the word ‘park’ invoked in her mind the picture of a resting place for wheeled vehicles. “Shivaji Park is so big?” she exclaimed when I described it to her, stretching out her arms skywards and sideways. It was International Yoga Day, so I assumed it was part of some asana she was practising.

“How many cars can it fit?” she asked.

“Thousands,” was my imagination-triggered guess.

“We should have something like that the Park in Goa,” she continued.

“Yes,” I agreed, my thoughts at complete variance with hers “a place where people of different states and professions mingle, where sportspersons and artists have a platform, where young mothers and octogenarians make friends, where pet-owners can exercise their dogs, where lovers can quarrel and cuddle, where lessons in knitting/crochet/life-skills are taken and given…”

“I don’t think that’s what she meant,” Shri Husband interrupted.

“No?” I was bewildered.

“I,” said Bai Goanna loftily, “think like the common man.” I felt that she was somehow deriding me because I was uncommon (ahem?) and a woman. We’ve quarrelled over pettier issues in the past, so I kept silent.   

Tentatively, I asked: “Means?”

Immediate response: “Parks are for parking. We Goans are still parking on sides of roads and on pavements. So old-fashioned. What are football grounds/ beaches for? All those stadia that were built for the Luso-games-- we need to use them optimally. We must get after our elected representatives (‘where does she pick up these big-big words from’, Shri Husband later wanted to know) to do something for the cars/scooters on the road.”

“But,” I explained to Bai Goanna that Shivaji Park, Mumbai, wasn’t about parking vehicles.

She responded with a mysterious expression: “It will be, you’ll see.”

Quite often, she’s right about these things. Scary, no?

           

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