I was late. The sun had started its lethargic descent. I walked carefully on the carriageway of the road. The footpath had been hijacked by gigantic blue-and-green barricades. The sound of drilling pierced my ears while dust annoyingly found a new home on my sandals. A Mumbai underground metro train station was being built here. I glanced at my watch furtively. She was waiting and I was late.
I walk into the building. Nostalgia hits me like a bullet: piercing, painful and yet ineffably cajoling. As a child, my brother and I would often go to the rather quaint neighbouring garden seeking a respite from the exuding evening heat. My mother, dressed in a starched cotton sari, would sit on the wooden benches, knitting and chatting with her friends. I would swing and he would slide, the only playground equipment in those days. The garden was beautifully outlined with magenta-coloured bougainvillea bursts and jasmine vines.
The grassy patches were interspersed with cobble-stone paths, with one additional path on the perimeter to be used by serious exercise buffs. Parrots peeped playfully from the gulmohar trees while an ageing banyan tree spread out its branches majestically, making a canopy of bright green leaves. My brother and I would enjoy chasing the butterflies amidst our own simple, innocuous games.
Today, I glance towards the garden with melancholy eyes. The sublime view has now been distorted with monstrous construction machines and workers. Newspapers had reported that many parks and gardens would be cleared to make way for the train stations for the underground Metro line. The news had appeared irrelevant at that time, but now it directly affects us. Frowning in disapproval, I had simply turned the page to read other, more interesting articles.
Today, however, it smacked me hard on the face. This was my garden, my childhood haven, my green emerald verdant patch, that would shine lustrously in the morning sun. Now it had been reduced to an insignificant muddy patch.
I ring the doorbell. My daughter comes running as fast as her little feet can take her while her eyes sparkle vivaciously. Every visit to my parents’ house ended with a customary visit to the garden.
Playtime lost
After an afternoon of bonhomie indoors, she strained to get out and start her main business of the evening. The business of every child – play. However, today not only was I so late, there was no garden left to play in.
My father was standing in the balcony, his face clenched in a storm of emotions. He was looking at the brown patch. “It is sad to see these beautiful trees being felled. How can they take a garden away just like that?” he asked with a broken voice. The uncomfortable interlude was interrupted by my daughter’s cheerful enquiry about the garden.
My father threw his hands in the air and said, “First you cut trees, take away the greenery and then complain about global warming? What kind of a future will these young innocent children have?”
I wonder the same.
The underground Metro is essential to provide improved travel infrastructure, multi-mode connectivity and economic growth in the over-populated financial hub of Mumbai city. What I am perplexed to see is that every modern development project is an enemy to the natural habitat. Economic progress is vital for every nation. However, surreptitiously hidden below the intoxicating materialistic needs of a society is the careless use of natural resources and unbound chemical emissions. Unchecked, this will create a deep fissure, swallowing the whole society. Economic growth and progress are what we are striving for. Environmental care is slowly regressing to the back of our daily requirements, thus being silenced by the simple ignominy of being left out. Can’t a balance be achieved between the environment and economic development?
We all believe in efficient financial planning and insurance plans. What about prudent environmental insurance? Don’t our children deserve this too?
sdivecha@yahoo.com
