Taking the Kid for an Outing

It is amazing how y kids remember some vague promise made to them a long time ago. This fact was brought to my notice early in the morning yesterday. My ten-year old son woke up earlier than usual and came straight from the bed to my table where I was writing. I wondered why he had woken up so early on a holiday. (It was Sivarathri yesterday.) Bleary eyed and not yet fully awake, he reminded me of my promise of taking him to the Indira Park on the next holiday. I had entirely forgotten about this promise and tried to talk him out of it. But he was adamant, and so off we went to Indira Park, a ten minute ride from our house.

But when we reached the park I was glad I made the trip. A park is the perfect place to be on an early summer’s morning. Already there were people milling about, some with earphones plugged into their ears, going about their daily constitutional. Some were doing various exercises. Many were sitting under trees and doing Pranayama. There were hordes of kids running around in the green lawns. Some were playing with Frisbees and some were playing shuttle badminton. A lot of people begin their day with a walk in the park. Only those lucky to stay within walking distance of the park can afford to come daily.

We strolled around inside the park watching the people. A gaggle of white geese attracted everyone's attention, especially the kids'. The geese were striding purposefully on the path beside the lake. There was a reason for their haste because soon they came upon a man with a bag in his hands. He threw them bread crumbs which the geese eagerly grabbed from the air. A woman took a picture on her cell phone camera. It was an unusual sight. I had seen another person feed grains to pigeons on the Necklace Road sometime ago. On previous visits I noticed an elderly gentleman leaving pieces of bread for squirrels in this park. It is heartwarming to see that people care about animals. But I wonder if they aren’t feeding them the wrong kind of food?

My kid was fascinated with a youngster who was hauling a net full of fish from a pond. The youngster sat astride on some kind of a white plastic sack filled with foam and paddled with his legs. Another youngster on the shore pulled in the net and filled the fish into another bag. My son watched as the fish wiggled their tails gasping for airm their gills flapping.

Wherever we went we noticed empty plastic water bottles floating in the lakes and other water bodies inside the park. There were plastic bags, empty wrappers of chips and other eatables littering the lawns. Why do we throw around so much stuff and make our environment dirty? It is easy to blame the park authorities for not keeping the park clean and garbage-free. But isn’t it our responsibility to throw all garbage in the bins and containers provided for the purpose? We just throw the empty wrappers wherever we like. It is high time we thought about it or else Hyderabad too will join the list of the dirtiest cities in the world (Mumbai and Delhi are already listed) as reported in a recent survey.