Public Parks: 10 point survival guide for children

As per Wikipedia, a public park is an open space to offer recreation, it is a green space for residents with a playground for children as a common feature, among others. Having parks nearby urban residents within a 10-minute walk provide multiple benefits. Sounds innocuous, what can be wrong with this?

After taking my daughters to public parks on a weekly basis, I have concluded that public parks are a necessary feature in India to make adults out of children. These parks  ensure that kids understand their surroundings and necessarily build their adaptability and coping mechanisms, at the earliest, for their survival in India.

Travel & Traffic

We stay in Hyderabad, which I suppose is among the 10 largest cities in the country. Our house is within 2 km radius of Secunderabad Railway Station, this would make it nowhere near the outskirts of the city but very well within the city limits. Yet, the closest public park is more than 3 km from our place. Girls have learnt that we have to take a ride for a minimum of 10-15 minutes one-way to reach any park, and have to travel in the company of the city’s burgeoning traffic and the consequent high pollution levels to spend an hour or two at a green space.

Restricted Timings

All the public parks in the residential areas in Hyderabad close at 10 am and reopen at 5 pm. They are actually supposed to close at 9 am and reopen sometime after 4 pm, but the park attendants are almost always late in executing these tasks. Why should the public parks be closed in the day-time at all? For what reason? Girls have learnt that public utilities in India serve their own purpose and are not meant in reality for the public, at large.

Over-crowding

The play area for children does not take into account the population that it caters to. Most residential public parks will have two swings, one slide, two see-saws, one monkey bar and one jungle gym. Children at any point of time will far outnumber the available resources, similar to IIT seats. Girls learn that they have taken birth in an over-crowded nation.

Queue and taking turns

As the girls learn that the available infrastructure is less than the intended beneficiaries, they get trained to stand in queues, to take turns and to jump the queues as well for out of turn promotion. I am sure that very soon, the public parks will also equip them to push, shove and jostle around to get their way ahead – mandatory survival skills in our nation.

Difficulty in using resources

At any point in time in any public park, at least one swing will be broken or its chain will be in some sort of tangle to make it uneven. Slides come in all sorts of gradients to slide down, most of the time inappropriate for children below four years of age. See-saw will have either the seat or the handle to hold broken. Even the monkey bar and jungle gym will have some rods missing. Girls use their imagination and learn to make the most of the available resources – they learn “jugaad”.

Open Spaces

Our imagination is limited to swings, slides and the likes, which are of course required. But, beyond that there shall be no open places for a free play or some other stuff like sand pit, mud pit, water pit or good old tree climbing. Girls learn to think out of the box within the box – more of the same.

Trees

Public parks do have trees but nowhere near the children play area. So, all the play area accessories, made of pure metal, will be too hot to handle in the Indian climate for most of the time. Girls have learnt to deduce that trees are for lip-service to environment, somewhere in some corner, and not for providing shade where it is required. Anyways, only a handful of public parks can really boast of trees like the banyan, neem, peepal, tamarind which offer a cool shade.

Restrooms

None of the residential public parks that we have been to have restrooms. Girls have learnt to have better control for most of the times, and at times, I have been shouted upon by elderly park patrons for making a public toilet for my daughters behind a tree. Now, please tell me, how is it expected to have 100% control for three-year-olds? But I suppose,  it is about time for my daughters to learn that their country expects them to hold on to, whatever time they are in public spaces.

Inclusivity

Indian public spaces do not encourage special children to come out and enjoy with their peers. My daughters do not get to learn that there are other children also with whom they need to take the initiative to share. Compassion and empathy are not necessarily associated with us, as Indians, and non-inclusivity of public parks ensures that children learn this first hand.

Mosquitoes

Once the sun sets, children find it way too difficult to handle the mosquito menace at the parks. I have never been able to figure out why the municipality cannot make adequate efforts at mosquito control.  Girls learn that once the evening sets in, it is better to get back to home. And in another 4-5 years, they will also learn that it is not just the mosquitoes, but the security set-up in India as well that requires women to be at home after dusk.

Running around

The most favourite activity for both the girls is running and jumping. We stay on the 3rd floor and the girls are restricted to indulge in their favourite activities because of complaints from the neighbour who stay below us. Even at public parks, they are not able to run and jump as there is hardly any place for them to walk without getting trampled upon.

At an overall level, my daughters learn that access to green public spaces is a privilege in India. Even after you do reach the so-called green space, you need to be an innovator to make use of whatever is available. And there will always be a push from behind.

Welcome to the Indian way of life, my dear daughters.

A Grape Adventure – Grapes are not sour

Sometime back, my wife had come across a photograph in The Hindu of grapes being harvested at the Grape Research Centre, Rajendranagar. We figured out that they had opened their gates for the general public for harvesting. Too good an opportunity to let it go. So all excited, we headed to the centre to try our luck at getting some sweet yummy grapes fresh from the farm.

On reaching, a big hoarding with the pictures of different varieties of grapes grown at the farm welcomed us. The girls were intrigued by the varied hues of the grapes – green, black, red, purple, dark blue. Our energies were upped with the enticing prospects.

We made our way to a small stall set up at the centre to facilitate the process.  In response to all our enthusiastic queries, the person at the counter looked at us sympathetically and shared that the harvesting had begun more than a month ago. So, despite a bumper produce of 10,000 kgs, we may not be able to get even a kg of grapes from whatever was left at the vineyard.

The adults in us who need volumes for gratification were disheartened. Not the girls who were ready for action and fun. So there we were armed with two baskets, one for each of the girls to put their harvests and a knife. As we were about to enter the vineyard, the security personnel in charge of the place suggested that we begin our exploration from the far end columns of vines, just in case.

The entire vineyard had overhead bird netting in place – to prevent the birds from feasting on the produce. The net had to be lifted to enter the vinery and this act made the girls feel as if we were entering a special secret zone. As we walked through the grape climbers, the green leaves of the vines were pleasing to the eye. The girls were happy because they were able to touch and feel the plants, all by themselves. After running around a few columns, the girls finally chanced upon bunches of hanging grapes. Big, small, tiny, firm, soft, mushy, dried, green, black, purple, maroon – they described every fruit they picked. We helped them to figure out the difference between the raw and ripe ones and the care that they need to take whilst picking the ripe fruits.

Just as they were going about harvesting, the drip irrigation system was switched on to water the plants. There were pipes running along the grape climbers with holes for water to trickle drop by drop directly onto the plant’s roots. Seemed to be everything that we could ask for – each of the picked fruits started to get washed and gobbled. And that is when they realised that grapes also have seeds. I mean until then, all the market bought ones that they had been introduced to were all of the seedless variety. B +ve asked if they should eat the seeds like those of the watermelon or spit them out like those of the custard apples. I asked her to give it a try and she started crunching and munching.

O +ve had not been fond of fruits, grapes in particular until then. But she couldn’t resist the taste of her sweet labour. Unfortunately, all that she tasted was sour and had seeds much to her chagrin. Good enough for her to conclude that grapes are not worthy of her appetite. B +ve with her fondness for sour had her tummy full. The icing on the cake for her was when whilst reading out the names of the grapes, she figured out a variety of grapes which actually shared her name. O +ve searched in vain but couldn’t find her name etched on the sign poles.

In all our exploration, we managed to find only one variety of grapes that was sweet. The rest were sour to the core. But nothing deterred us. I mean the girls and they went on and on religiously walking through every column at the vineyard.

After a good two hours, we came out of the netted zone. A tractor in a corner caught the girls’ attention. They spent next 15-20 minutes in driving the stationary tractor. Finally, all our efforts were weighed at 300 grams and priced at Rs. 30/-.

Farm visits which tend to focus on picking and plucking give a great high. After all, who would not miss out on a chance of harvesting and savouring farm fresh produce? But such visits also tend to inadvertently not focus on the intensive and interesting facets and processes at the farm. It is often noted that kids, more so adults are on an accumulation spree/ on a race to fill baskets and sacks during harvest festivals. We are forever in a race and leave no chance of getting our kids inducted into it at the earliest, isn’t it?

Had there been more grapes, would we have missed out on getting acquainted with… The twists and bends of the grape vines? The smell of moistened earth? The number of nozzles between two sign poles? The textures and colours of the heart-shaped leaves? Intricately created spider webs?

We set out on our grape adventure in search of sweet grapes. At the end of it, all I can say is our grapes were not sour.

Colour Me Purple – A Day with Berries of Basella

In our apartment’s car parking lot, there are a few potted plants along the sideways. O +ve and B +ve like to pick up twigs, fallen leaves and poke around the wet soil. Just as we were all walking, we chanced upon the berries of the Red Malabar Spinach vine. Oh, My! In a jiffy, they brought back colourful memories of my childhood.

My wife and I went ahead and plucked some of them. We gave the girls one each and asked them to squeeze the berries. They were a bit apprehensive not knowing what is to come out but as the lovely purple colour oozed out, the girls squealed with delight. B +ve immediately remarked that she liked this colour and asked if she could colour her palm, fingers and nails. Even before I answered in the affirmative, O +ve also got hooked on the idea and they both got busy in painting their – whatever they can with the purple colour of the Red Malabar Spinach fruits. I asked them not to throw away the seeds after rubbing the colour.

The girls wanted to do more – so they started off on my hands. Whilst they were at it, my wife told them about the Red Malabar Spinach vine and showed them its heart-shaped semi-succulent leaves with red veins, petioles and stems. She also shared memories of a time when her mother used to grow them in their backyard and whenever they were in the mood for it, she would dash off to bring some freshly harvested leaves for a yummy daal.

My nails, fingers and palm were all well done.

And then O +ve asked if they could use the colour for playing Holi. I said yes and they went gung-ho smearing each other’s faces with the berry’s juice. After they exhausted their handfuls, I asked them to pick some berries and leaves for home and also collected all the seeds that the girls had left behind. That’s when B +ve shared that she would use some to colour water in her squeeze bottle to play Holi with her grandparents.

Their afternoon nap was followed by a Holi session with their grandparents. And then I asked them if they were willing to plant the Basella Rubra seeds in their pots in our flat’s balcony. My daughters were all for it – so after digging out the hardened soil in unused pots, they sowed the seeds, filled up the pots with red soil and watered them. And the minute they finished the task, they started asking, so when will the berries come? So much for my taking them through the entire growth cycle of a plant:)

There were some more berries left in their basket along with the leaves. When their mother asked them if she could use the leaves to make daal in the way their grandmother made, they readily agreed. And whilst their mom was busy in the kitchen, we were trying out ways to put to use the remaining berries.

I made some quick outlines with their names on cards and asked them to follow suit. O +ve and B +ve were very happy to see the output. They really enjoyed writing their names with the berries. We then tried splat painting with the berries on both paper and fabric. And it was just awesome fun.

The day ended with a meal of hot piping rice, ghee, yummy malabar spinach dal and smudges of purple colour all around. Who would have thought that we could spend an entire day with a berry fruit? Girls are not going to forget the colour purple any time soon or the berry or what all can be done with it.

A day well spent with Berries of Basella – Colour me Purple.