Dil Hain Chhota Sa.......Chhoti Si Asha (Small is Beautiful)

It’s Tuesday, and as I gear up to go for a customary walk in the Park, my wife tells me that it’s Tuesday:  “Raheja Park would be crowded today”.

She is right; Tuesday is a free-day for neighbourhood communities to swarm to the Park. It is a sort of week-end for the ‘Santosh Nagar’, ‘Hanuman Nagar’, ‘Jari-Mari’ and ‘Nagari Niwara’ folks.

I don’t like the Mumbai crowds, and it is well known in my circle of acquaintances. I invent marvellous excuses to skip the events, family-relatives-friends-social, to skip bursting into serpentine crowds. But I do like the Sunday crowds, the festivities, and the bonhomie, and the children trying to free their hands off from their mothers clutches, and run to pick-whatever: flowers, leaves, stones and hurl them without aiming at anything. The free spirits!

If the Sundays are crowded by eight-to-eight new generation office goers trying to trim a pound or two in vain, ‘Free Tuesdays’ are enjoyed by the working class who come in groups-families, friends, relatives-whatever!

There were usual suspects on today’s ‘Free Tuesdays’, too: two semi-circle rows of retired middle class gentlemen, and a few females. Then there are ‘all week walkers’ who are cutely disciplined to take four, five, six rounds-walking briskly. Some of these minds must have been drilled by their doctors into believing ‘walking will eat a few of the calories’ they eat every day. Or the ‘educating newspaper supplements’ that eulogise the fruits of walking to fill in the pages. I see them often, some adding weight, some not losing weight.    

One or two ‘weave-jog’ around the lazy walkers admired by the families cuddled on benches and raised platforms. Then there is a teenage girl who runs for one or two rounds and then do fast skipping in the amphitheater where the teenage counterparts sell dummies of workouts.

Today is a free-Tuesday added to a summer break. For me, and the children who have not gone on vacations anywhere, and children who have come to their relatives during the summer break; those who can, burn the extra mile; those who cannot, burn the calories instead.  

There are swathes of black gowns spread across the park-walking in colour, chatting sprawled on the grass, moving on the swings pushed by their children. It is easy to identify their religion. One can identify their religion for they dare to be identified in the islands of right wing fanatics. The black draped women from Jari-Mari and Santosh Nagar are oblivious to the faint mutterings and disdainful looks. They laugh it over, enjoying their day out impervious of the blackness of the minds around them.

Children are running around, moving around the swings waiting for their turn, climb the steps to the roller-coaster; a few of them play different games that includes kabaddi. That is Mumbai for you-we Mubaikars can play any-game-anywhere-anytime, and at times play simultaneously two or more games even on crowded roads amid the blinking horns of Ferraris stranded in bumper to bumper traffic.  

Outside the park there is a ‘Maharashtra Wada Pao’ and a ‘Rajasthani Ice Cream’ vendor on wheel carts. Wada Pao is associated with the word Maharashtra, and it is general notion that they are good at Wada Pao (eating or making?). I don’t like those “Bengal-Gram flour draped potatoes” soaked in hot oil and sand-witched between two halves of a bread called “pao” despite being a Mumbaikar (am I?). There is also a general perception that Rajasthanis are good at sweets and desserts (eating or making? Selling perhaps). I try to assess, and come to a conclusion, without rhyme or reason that the ‘Wada Pao’ seller is not a Maharashtrian; but anyone who proclaims to be a Maharashtrian can very well sell “authentic wada pao” so that explains the nameplate on the wheel cart.                  

I like the festive crowd, all mixed background but more from the working class neighbourhoods. At one of the corners, a small group is seated on the stairs of a ‘sort of amphitheater’ ready for lots of ‘memory pics’ and one amongst them, a young fellow gives last minute instructions for ‘smart phone camera’ pictures. The smart phone technology has robbed off the charm carried by a ‘select few’ who owned cameras peeping out of bags slinging on their shoulders-owners pride, neighbours envy. That’s the technology for the masses!  

 
What I like about the “Tuesday Community” (and not Tuesday Crowd) is that these people have small aspirations; they gorge on the wada pao and “cool-fee”, a sort of ice cream hard-to-nimble cone. Their pockets are not deep; neither they fancy ‘cool cabs’; they walk or fit into a packed rickshaw. They do not aspire (at least I guess so) to be there with the ‘society’ living in the skyscrapers beside the Park. They have small ‘happy moments’ captured on smart and affordable mobile camera phones to share-not on virtual platforms but at the Tuesday community place called Raheja Park. Dil hain chhota sa....Chhoti si asha....