A rookie reporter’s stroll down memory lane
A rookie reporter’s stroll down memory lane
As a rookie reporter, my chief had sent me out to the mandatory beat of checking out the city’s parks, gardens and the zoo. That’s one way of saying, “Kiddo, don’t hang around the desk. Get a story.” The story would be grammar-checked and spiked. The next level would be social club meetings which had their hidden perils. I turned into a cold coffeeholic.
Be that as it may, just for old time’s sake, I’ve returned to checking out parks lately. The zoo can wait. First on my must-visit was the August Kranti Maidan, which has been sliced helpfully into separate enclaves for cricket and football play or just lolling on the park benches. The lolling, unhappy to report, means dealing with crumbling cement benches and solo seats. And no brooms seem to sweeping the refuse gathered there since weeks. Truly, it’s a wonderful tree-shaded maidan, redolent of India’s independence struggle, but from the look of things, we’re still struggling to keep the hallowed spot, spanking clean and inviting for a summer wayfarer.
Next, I discovered that a compact, but scenically-located park – right opposite the Haji Ali dargah – is padlocked. Somehow, I gained entry and discovered that it has been taken over since years by all sorts of encroachers. Groups of kids take respite there after selling books and flowers at the traffic junction, play, dance and sing, which is wonderful.
But there are innumerable red-eyed adults, too, who want to know what you’re doing there. Exactly! I would have liked to ask them the same question, but that would have been at the risk of being assaulted with cuss words or a punch in the face. Not being a super-hero sort, I backtracked. Honestly, that prime-area park calls for a check-out by the municipal authorities. A public park, by its very definition, exists for the public, doesn’t it? And I also parked myself in a nameless garden-like spot off Napean Sea Road, between Godrej Baug and Hanging Gardens. It was an unwise thing to do because I was heckled out immediately by a bunch who didn’t want me to watch them washing clothes in an expanse of water. ‘Expanse’ for want of a better word — since it didn’t resemble a pond, a pool or a bubbling brook. Encased by rocks, this expanse is an unofficial dhobi ghat of sorts.
Okay, so the status of parks remains unchanged down the decades. Rookie reporters should visit them. Something tells me, with a bit of investigation and nosing around, they’d yield front-page stories!
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