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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Mint-on-sunday/  Letter from a walk in the park
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Letter from a walk in the park

Change makes us crave for what once was and could have been and to find means to preserve that memory

Photo: Arun JanardhanPremium
Photo: Arun Janardhan

As I waved a cheery “morning" to an elderly couple on a brisk walk, they looked startled and barely acknowledged me. So much for trying to be a genial fellow explorer, I thought. 

Their shock was understandable though. It was a quiet morning, without a soul in sight. The couple was probably enjoying their genteel jaunt when I had chanced upon them through some shrubs on the side. 

We were at the Maharashtra Nature Park near Mahim in Mumbai. This was a couple of days after the Mumbai Mirror newspaper had reported about the state government’s proposal—with the Slum Redevelopment Authority and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority—to use the 41-acre Maharashtra Nature Park for redeveloping neighbouring Dharavi. Understandably, citizens struggling to breathe in a polluted city were aghast at the prospect of losing one of the city’s few surviving green spaces. 

With the forest surrounding the Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon already under threat from the Mumbai Metro and the Mahalaxmi Race Course battling constantly to fend off builders and other profiteers, one cannot be too optimistic about the survival of any greenery in the city. (The chief minister, though, has told the state assembly that no construction would be allowed on the Maharashtra Nature Park.).

So, I decided to make my maiden trip to the park, which is sandwiched somewhere between Bandra-Kurla Complex, Mahim and Sion. At the park, a jovial staff member asked me if I was following up on Yuva (Shiv) Sena chief Aditya Thackeray’s visit the previous day. “Many media people were here as well," she said.

I murmured something in reply about paying homage to the garden before buildings and supermarkets replace it. “It will never happen," she said, confidently.

“The people in the neighbourhood would never allow it. It’s important for them, to have this place," she added, taking a deep breath as if to indicate why.

A path from the gate led to the central office building that also houses an art gallery, which wasn’t open at the time. Several signs pointed towards “nature trails" and well-written signboards made for fun reading. 

One of them says: “Though so fine and delicate looking, spider silk is strong and resilient. It is produced in a liquid form in special abdominal glands but soon gets solidified upon being drawn out by the legs. Of course, the spider itself never gets caught in its own web!"

It was also World Water Day and therefore, another board helpfully added: “No water, no life. No blue, no green." 

As I trekked down one of the “trails", I strained to hear the first official Bird of Mumbai, the coppersmith barbet. It’s familiar tuk-tuk sound drowned by the city’s other encroacher, the omnipresent crow. 

When I emerged from the thickets, scaring the aforementioned couple, I saw the Mithi River in front. Grey-black in colour, filled with floating objects like thermocol boxes and plastic bottles, it’s less of a river and more of a drain. Across the river, the towers of BKC remind me I'm in a metropolis.

The trail led me further to the lake—if one can call it that. A lush green carpet of vegetation covers the lake/marshy plot of land. It’s so thickly covered with plants that I threw a pebble to make sure I could not actually walk across. 

I asked a guard why there were no benches for people to sit, read a book or watch the birds. He said it was to ward off lovers, who will converge in droves if such a facility were made available. One of his tasks is to make sure no couple gets too cosy in the romantic environs of the park.

A loudspeaker from across the river shatters the quiet. It sounded like an event, an announcer, probably radio on steroids. The coppersmith gets muffled, only to pick up as I moved farther where I also spotted what looked like a blue-and-white flycatcher.

Two hours and a princely entry fee of Rs10 later, I made my way back, embarrassed that I had never been here before. But that’s what change does to us—it makes us crave for what once was and could have been and to find means to preserve that memory.

In the last few months and years, several of Mumbai's iconic institutions have shut: Samovar, the restaurant at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Kala Ghoda; Rhythm House, the music store across Jehangir; Wayside Inn (or the sign that remained) right next door to where B.R. Ambedkar wrote a part of the Constitution; Strand book store in Fort; and Bastani, the Irani joint near Metro Cinema. 

The textile mills, with their ancient banyan trees and large warehouses, have been replaced with malls now, with not even a blade of grass in sight. Parts of Mumbai’s famous maidans—Oval, Azad, etc.—and some of the Mahalaxmi Race Course have been taken away for the Metro, perhaps to be given back, perhaps not.

The Bombay Gymkhana, which hosted the first-ever Test match in India, does not have that whole ground anymore. Trees at Cuffe Parade (among other places) that survived generations and concretization have been brought down in order to “better our lives".

These “institutions" have gone for a reason: to make way for “development", as a part of progress and to improve the quality of human life in the city, or so we are told. Some of these famous places have succumbed to disputes, legalities and other human-made problems. Some just ran their course—hardly anyone buys music on CDs and books from a store anymore. 

All that remains is sentimentality and a cry on social media. As Mumbai’s air quality often hovers around “poor" and the sale of household air purifiers increases, citizens and citizen groups are rightfully concerned about the remaining open spaces that act as a city’s lungs. The Maharashtra Nature Park was a result of a citizens’ movement. Another one could (maybe did) save it.

I am fortunate to see the racecourse often enough and walk through it. Maybe I should visit Aarey again soon, just like I did with the Mahim Park. Just so long as it exists. And to breathe a bit.

Letter From... is Mint on Sunday’s antidote to boring editor’s columns. Each week, one of our editors—Sidin Vadukut in London and Arun Janardhan in Mumbai—will send dispatches on places, people and institutions that are worth ruminating about on the weekend. 

Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

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Published: 24 Mar 2018, 11:24 PM IST
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