We have found, much to our surprise, a number of parks and open spaces within the tight built fabric of Khirkee village. There’s Nandan Park which is close to the pink temple on the main spine of the village leading to Malviya Nagar. MCD has only recently reclaimed this park for public use from the custody of some of the original settling families who virtually used this park as their private space. There’s the long and narrow Prithviraj Chauhan Park and a smaller rectangular park across from it on the southern side. There are two other parks abutting the Khirkee DDA flats to the north side of Prithviraj Chauhan Park. Each of these spaces has their own politics and dynamics as well as strong environmental and perceptual cues for children.
Prithviraj Chauhan Park: layout and observed uses and behaviors
On our many trips to Prithviraj Chauhan Park, I noticed different age groups, boys and girls, mothers, other adults using the place at the same time. This park is clearly demarcated in three zones that to my mind serve as multiple activity nodes for different user groups.
Zone 1 comprises a dusty barren space with a few trees in the periphery. A street-facing temple carves out some space from the north east corner of this zone which at its eastern narrow end is about 25 meters wide. The first zone is where the older boys play cricket and football, with occasional cycling activities by younger children.
Zone 2 comprises a well-kept middle area with a grass lawn, a dry fenced off fountain lined with tiles. Trees and flowering bushes and hedges make this one of the prettiest places inside the village. At its widest Zone 2 is about 40 meters wide. The middle zone is the zone for women, girls of all ages and sizes and younger boys. Children engage in a variety of games under the watchful eyes of mothers, aunts, neighbours and other adults.
The space in between the first and second zones serves as a waiting area with several benches facing zone 1. This is also the space where people enter the park and has the option of going left to zone 1 or right to zone 2. Women, younger children and elderly were seen using the benches when we visited. One time we saw adolescent girls playing badminton in this linear space. There are several markers that help to define these zones: a massive tree with a raised fenced off base housing a sacred space holds eastern end of zone 1 before the transition zone, the entry into zone 2 from the transition zone are further articulated through framing the entries into the two walkways along the long sides of the park by trees and hedges.
Zone 3 is separated from zone 2 by a hedge, a walkway that merges with the dirt of this zone though walkers still complete their rounds ignoring the lack of the physical walkway. Even though a row of houses squeeze down this end of the park, the houses are separated by a pedestrian street from the park’s boundary wall. A raised cemented portion in front of the pump house has a bench where assorted people including men and adolescents boys hang out. Sometimes we saw smaller girls playing in this cemented area. Khoj once did a toy-making workshop here where children baked clay toys. Next to this cemented area is a unkempt overgrown patch where we saw older boys playing cricket.
DDA Parks
The park across from the popular Prithviraj Chauhan Park on the north is a L-shaped dusty ground which was used by two groups of boys for sports on both days we visited. The park had not been marked on the Khirkee map drawn up by DDA and posted on major intersections inside the village. The rectangular dusty ground in front of the DDA buildings (which also hasn’t been marked on the map) was another interesting space to observe. The groups of children playing here were very different from the ones in the grassy park. The entrance of the park seems to be under construction and was piled high with logs, sand and gravel. About two-thirds of the park was used by older adolescent boys. The other part was used by a group of children mainly from the Panchsheel Vihar area behind the DDA flats. Most of them lived in the rag pickers’ colony. Some of them had attended KHOJ workshops earlier and were keen that we do a theatre or dance workshop with them. In one corner of the park under a tree, we saw that they (girls) had made an ingenious temporary see-saw by balancing two logs of wood (from the pile of construction material) on the back edge of a movable bench placed between two trees. It was quite a sight to see 4-5 children enjoying themselves with this simple yet creative invention.
The park where no children played
There is a smaller rectangular park across the road on the south from Prithviraj Chauhan Park. This park is cosily tucked in from the road and surrounded by residential buildings that overlook it. There is only a narrow pedestrian street between the park and the buildings. This park has two entrances: one from the middle of the inner long side near the buildings and another from an outer corner facing the main street. Both entrances appeared as if they were made as an afterthought by breaking the thick masonry wall. The boundary wall is quite high, about four and a half feet and on top that there is an additional iron grille about one and a half feet tall. Inside were two large trees located in the two halves of the rectangle. In addition there were another 9 trees of different kinds along the southern and western and to some extent the north western edge. The western quadrant of the park has a grass lawn with four benches around it. The eastern quadrant is a dirt top with a heap of mulch, leaves and debris at the foot of the majestic tree that shades this zone. We never saw any children playing here. And I wonder why. This little park, cosily nested within the residential fabric of the neighborhood, to my mind presents an opportunity to meet neighbors, friends, while younger children played in the lawn. For girls also this space physically affords a protected yet central space for hanging outdoors with friends and playing without fear of a cricket ball hitting them or boys shooing them away. We want to probe this to find out why this little park lies unused while all the other parks around it bustle with people and activities.
No comments:
Post a Comment