Changing Times Changing Lanes

Thinking back to his childhood days, Ravi Uchil today, at 60 years of age, recalls them to be full of fun and excitement. “I was about 4 or 5 years old and was staying at Chennai at the time. I used to stay at a complex that had different housing plots and independent bungalows, and around me were lots of children of various ages.” With no barriers in age, Ravi and his diverse group of friends stopped at nothing when it came to their playtime. “We would play chor police, climb trees and jump fences, play hide and seek in an abandoned house nearby. Thinking back, it was quite eerie,” Ravi laughingly recalls. “Then I got my first cricket back as I got a little older, and cricket became a more regular affair,” he says.

But, life had new things in store for Ravi, and soon he found himself moving to Mumbai with his family. “We moved to Bandra, and it was a completely different setup when compared to Chennai.” In a blink of an eye, Ravi’s playground had changed from vast spaces around bungalows to an urban setup with narrow lanes and apartments; but his games never changed. With a new group of friends, Ravi now found himself running around the streets of Bandra. “There was simply no stopping us as kid,” he laughs, “I remember playing at Almeida Park quite often. Today it has a compound wall and a formal setup, but in my days; it was an open garden and we could enter from anywhere. Right in the middle of the park was a pond, where we would spend hours trying to catch the fish in it,” he reminisces.

Back in Ravi’s time, the concept of security was not like we see today, and he along with his friends took full advantage of this. “The buildings back then didn’t have tall compound walls or watchmen guarding the entrances. So during a game of Chor Police we were free to run around, in and out of these compounds, jumping across their walls.” When the moods turned, a game of marbles and fighter tops would be a part of his adventures and when the winds favoured, it was a game of flying kites. Often they would climb walls and tree, trying to break off its fruits. “I remember there used to be this three storied house beside my friend’s house with a lot of fruit trees in its compound. The owner was strict and he has two ferocious dogs! But that still didn’t stop us from trying to break the guavas off his tree and enjoy it amongst us,” says Ravi. “Every day, at least one of us would invariably go back home covered in muck, scrapes and bruises. It was so common that there was always a bottle of iodine and medicines waiting for us as we entered our homes!”

As Ravi grew older, cycling around Bandra became a new hobby. “We used to cycle in groups for hours. Back then our school used to end at 1 PM and we would be out to play by 4 PM in the evening since there was no concept of tuition classes. Every evening we would go around Bandsrand or cycle till Lands End and climb up and down the little hillock there. From there we would head down to the water and try to catch crabs!” He reminisces about the weekends when he would cycle along with his friends to the small SantaCruz airport and buy tickets for a nominal fee to the observation deck and spend hours watching the flights take off. Come rain or shine, Ravi and his friends would play unabashed and unhindered.

But times have changed and so have the trends of playtime. Minaz Ansari, a resident of Bandra for over 17 years, talks about the different characteristics of Bandra and how outdoor play has changed over time among children. “The Gaothans of Bandra have very different characteristics from the rest of the area. The type of houses, public spaces and streets are very different. Here the streets and pedestrian walks themselves transform into play spaces on weekends,” she explains. “Then of course there’s the sea front, Carther Road, Bandstand, Joggers Park and these areas are almost always full of people.” However, according to Minaz, there is a certain amount of segregation when it comes to the people using these spaces. “A lot of these parks usually levy a small fee for its maintenance, but this keeps away a certain segment of people, making it inaccessible to them.”

Shedding light on the structured play spaces in today’s day and age, she talks about the schools and clubs that have started organized play activities in the evenings, typically after classes end. “But if you look at play at a micro scale, you will see that the trends have changed a lot. Earlier apartments usually had spaces below them that kids would use for unstructured play. But nowadays these spaces are taken over for parking, making them unviable for the children,”Minaz illustrates. With a lack of gated communities and buildings sharing common open areas, the number of children coming out to play has reduced a lot.

Explaining further, she talks about how the tendency of helicopter parenting is a major change from earlier days. “Often parents worry about safety and don’t allow their children to go down unattended for playtime. You will usually find a parent, nanny, or grandparent accompanying these children to the parks in the vicinity or their friend’s places. Fights or bullying that is common among kids used to give them an opportunity to learn from the situation; but nowadays parents have been stepping in, leaving their children unable to fend for themselves.” Furthermore, the trend of Playdates is something that is swiftly catching on in wealthy communities. “Usually, mothers will speak to each other and set up a play-meeting for the children and they are dropped to each other’s houses. And slowly, playtime is becoming a lot about gadgets, making it shift from an outdoor activity to an indoor phenomenon,” she says.

It is however the children at the slums who despite having the independence to play, don’t really get to do so, as they are stuck in various other activities. “They have the pressure to attend school. Most of them follow that up with extra classes as their parents are unable to help them with their homework. Even on weekends, these children attend special classes held in public parks. On top of that they have the added responsibility of various household chores,” explains Minaz. And to conclude, she draws our attention to the irony that these children face today, “The ones who want to play and have the freedom to do so because parents don’t monitor them, are stuck with other responsibilities; and the ones who have the luxury of not being held up in household activities do not have the liberty to play!”