This is no place to play, held a section of opinion, adding for good measure that past admonitions had gone unheeded. The other section, parents of the offending children and on the defensive, would certainly plead: we know, we know, but where do the poor fellows play? Wherever they like, but this is the last time it shall be near my car, I could hear the retort from one of the main aggrieved. There would be no consensus, and I could see my friend weighing in in favour of following rules and warning of dire consequences if transgressions happened again.
I could not help recalling the film The Lunchbox, which I had just seen. The film depicts middle-class struggle in blighted Mumbai so well. One of its most natural scenes, not central to the plot but so much part of the little things that make it such a great film, shows the plight of children who're trying to play cricket on the narrow street and landing the ball where it shouldn't be.
Sure, those Mumbai houses were made ages ago when you had parks nearby for children to play. On the other hand, today's modern housing complexes had everything provided for - jogging track, gym, community hall and even a pocket handkerchief of a children's park with a swing or two. Why didn't they think of playing spaces when they bought it, asked my distraught friend when I tried to raise my voice in favour of the children.
I was lost in a dilemma. How many people can afford apartments in complexes that have open spaces for children to play? But children must play and it is terrible to make them feel they have done something seriously wrong, like being caught playing truant, when all they were guilty of was trying to play a little wherever they could.
If the grown-ups had landed themselves in a soup of their own making, then it was for them to devise a solution, I felt. Can you work out a compromise, I thought out aloud. Can you identify a corner from where cars can be removed for a couple of hours in the late afternoon (that's when most car owners have driven to office) so that it can turn into a temporary play area? Of course, the odd car that has to go can drive through and the game can be stopped for a moment. You can even post a lookout who periodically yells: Car ahoy! My friend, however, was not amused.
I gave up arguing, and soon a notice I had seen two decades ago in a posh residential part of London came back to me. There was a well-maintained small park around which the good-looking houses were lined up; a smart game of tennis was on in it and the legend at the gate said, "Children not allowed".
I was appalled, and asked my companion how she could banish children form parks. She was taken aback and replied a bit lamely: it's a private park. I didn't belabour the point, but it seemed immaterial who owned the space. Who should want to live in a neighbourhood where children don't make a noise in open spaces in long summer evenings, I thought.
Those well-heeled Londoners were no different from a relative of mine who had long ago proudly noted the special ways in which their housing complex in Gurgaon had been laid out. We have made little hillocks in the central park, he revealed. But what on earth for? So that children cannot play there and break window panes, he declared with visible pride in his innovativeness.
I was so relieved we had not done the same in our own Gurgaon development. It was, in a way, unique in terms of the number of parks it had. Children had enough space to play undisturbed. But still, the urge to hit a six or put a rainbow shot through the goalposts is uncontrollable, and even there we would occasionally have irate residents protesting against the depredations of children whose parents were not bringing them up well. I didn't argue with my relative but felt relieved that we were blessed in being able to live in a place where children could play without fetters.
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