The Park
By Ch.Sandeep Datta
But it peeved us to see its bizarre condition. It was in ruins with not a single blade of grass left in it besides it had been literally encroached by some grown up boys, who were into gambling. They had turned our park into a venue to bet hundreds to thousands of rupees through cricket match. Whoever played was expected to contribute some money for the total amount of bet, otherwise he was not welcome.
The main thing which used to disappoint us was that the participating players in such matches were those who would be part of bets. Many of the youngsters in their teens would steal money from home or would arrange it by hook or crook whole week for the Sunday matches.
But more precarious was the sight of those little children who would stand outside the grills or railings of this park, just because either they didn’t have money or were not so called as good as the senior boys.
They had mere turned spectators to such gambling in the name of cricket and high decibel use of expletives. They were hardly ever allowed to participate, if at all then as extra or useless players.
The entire social environment of our area had come to ruins. Nobody would come out in the day time, as most of these youngsters involved individuals from slum sectors or strangers from other far away blocks of our colony.
Every family was irritated but always felt helpless to take on such grown up youngsters who were into betting, abusing and aggression to anyone confronting them. It was a helpless stage for everyone, as the families had lost the sense of being united.
Both of us used to have long discussions at times over such a growing problem and its escalating effect. Whenever we discussed with others, people turned away fearing repercussions of even uniting against such a menace.
During one of the games, my friend Rajesh had a tiff with someone over the condition of contributing some money to be eligible to play in one such match. He was told that only those who would put money on the game, could play. He felt agitated after observing that sportsmanship had vanished completely, only money-mindedness or gambling remained in the park.
He smashed the wickets in disgust and declared that henceforth nobody would play in the park. It will not be allowed to become a gambling venue for anyone.
Watching him from my house's balcony, I rushed down and supported his declaration. Being a little senior to rest of the youngsters present there, the announcement was respected.
He told me that these youngsters had stooped so low that there was no cricket or sports left in the park here. It was purely a gamble.
The youngsters, thankfully, obeyed and left the park.
At night, both of us discussed and decided that cricket would no more exist in the park. But it was quite a challenge for us to prevent them from playing. Nobody helped and we were viewed as funny people making stupid attempt to restore the park.
We managed to let it remain closed for two years. But we couldn’t do much to bring a perceivable change in it. We had assured all the youngsters of bringing this park to its old glory and make it worth calling a garden.
But in the meantime, we almost turned laughing stocks. Youngsters will ask for a fixed date or month by which they could check us keeping our word of bringing a real change in it.
We faced threats, mockery, and criticism for becoming a hurdle of those gambling youngsters, who used to come here and had a good time gambling in the disguise of cricket previously.
We persuaded our gardeners, who had stopped visiting that park, fearing for their lives from youngsters. They didn’t wish to come and water the barren land. We assured them of security and our full cooperation. After long persuasion, they started opening the water tap of the park.
The notorious youngsters had spread so much sand on it to make it cricket-friendly that hardly any blade of grass or plant had left in the park. We persisted with the gardeners with request and persuasion despite everything odd. We succeeded in that.
Slowly but steadily, we moved on to a stage where we managed to have grass planted in the park. Due to sand, it had to be planted more than five times. We also continued to request the youngsters to let it develop.
We were made fun of for such a foolish step or dream. It was viewed as a hopeless dream of two stupids. As the park’s boundary touched my home’s boundary wall, any movement in the park directly affected me and my aged mother. Noticing our concern for the park and realizing our objective, she used to take charge of pointing out and objecting to children entering the park to play in the noon. When both of us would be in office, she would confront the foul-mouthed children for our sake on her own on our behalf.
Finally, there was a time when the barren ground developed small green patches of grass. It excited us to carry on with our determination. We pushed for planting some plants in sidelines of the park. The children never wanted us to prepare the park in such a way that cricket could not be played forever. At times they were provoked to play.
Following uncountable rounds of arguments and persuasion, we managed to convince them to not play ever and let us develop it properly.
Without wait, we planted saplings of plants. We would ensure they were watered almost every other day. We always feared return of notorious children and gambling youngsters.
Every new branch of the plant or new green patch of grass was cherished by us as a festive moment. We would share with each other greeting for new success; of covering new barren patch into green.
There came a day when MCD officials came for pruning. Their aim was to cut out the maximum for selfish purposes. Our friends Satish and Deepak adapted aggressive attitude to save peepal trees. We came forward and other friends like Harish Batra and Vijay Malhotra joined in as our support group. We finally won in having our say and not let neighbours fell the trees in the name of pruning. We forced the visiting MCD staff to follow our directions or face the evidence we had collected of them in our mobile cameras.
We made them just prune the unwanted or over grown part instead of following neighbours’ directions to cut it thoroughly for their selfish purposes. It gave us great sense of satisfaction to have saved some trees unitedly.
On the other side, we also reached a stage where there was greenary all around in the park. The once-barren piece of land now had at least grass all around and some plants. We planted some more with the passage of time. Other friends of the neighbourhood joined in later.
People started appreciating our endeavour. It was after a long wait of almost five years, we had marigold flowers blooming around Holi festival.
We organised Holi outside the park’s gate. All heads of the family, joined in to wish each other voluntarily. After colouring each other with deep sense of festivity and coming together on the festival of colours, we allowed all to enter into the park for the first time in years.
Individuals, who had stopped being in talking terms with each other or could not meet each other for so many years met and embraced each other.
Our one-hour scheduled event, envisaged by me, Rajesh and another neighbourhood friend Harish, turned a big success. All men, who had once played together 25-30 years ago in that park were given a place to sit together surrounded by greenary and spend time with each other with long forgotten joy.
We couldn’t believe that they spent five hours together with someone’s wife bringing tea, someone preparing Bread Pakora, someone preparing Chuttni and someone later buying Kulfi for all of them. Overall, it was a day we had worked for all these years.
The event was a grand success with more and more people appreciating our cause. Surely, we accomplished a great success – a green success!!
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