The world as their playground

The apartment WhatsApp group was abuzz with messages getting tossed to and fro. When was the basket ball court going to be ready?  What about the football court?
And would the swimming pool be ready at all?  

It was a new apartment and the peripheral facilities called ‘amenities’ in the brochure were still to be finished. Meanwhile, the residents were beginning to get impatient. They had paid a ‘ransom’ to buy the flat which included the amenities and wanted to be able to use them at the earliest. The children could not use the basketball or football courts and had to play random games in the available open spaces, was the constant complaint. The tiny tots ran all around the complex, chased by grandparents since their play area was not fully ready yet.

In the midst of all these discussions the monsoon set in and Bengaluru had continuous rains for three days running making matters worse. The kids had no place to play and were getting restless at home – thus bothering the parents! I was quietly reading a book when I heard noises of children. Who was playing in this rain, I wondered and peeped out of my window.  

Across our boundary wall there is an open space surrounded by small houses and buildings of the existing Agrahara. This open space had been turned into a small pool of water, albeit dirty, in the rains. And, to my amazement, I found some local children jumping into the pool and swimming. One had even brought along a makeshift fishing net and was trying to catch fish!

The rains stopped and the pool vanished, the area turning into a dry space. I felt a tinge of sadness for the kids whose swimming had been put paid to. Towards afternoon I heard voices again. And I saw the pool had been conveniently converted into a cricket ground and the kids were now happily playing cricket!  

Our apartment WhatsApp group is still abuzz with messages. The amenities have all been completed and the various courts – football, basketball, tennis, cricket are all ready to receive players. The play area for tiny tots is also ready.  And so is the swimming pool. But the complaints have not stopped. The children are finding it difficult to access the basketball court because the key has to be taken from the guard room and returned after playing which they sometimes forget.  The swimming pool is dirty, a few things in the play area like swings and slides are damaged. As a result, children have ended up playing in the available open spaces and the pool lies unused.

I realised that children will be children everywhere. They just want a place to play – be it the muddy track near their homes or the open spaces in the apartments. They don’t need ‘amenities’ - just any available place to play.