LAND LOCKED

What does play look like for kids in urban India? Do we need a Right to Play? We set out with a camera to find out, and what we saw was sad and troubling

Cycling on a terrace; badminton in the building lobby; cricket on the railway tracks.

That last one must really hurt Sachin Tendulkar, legendary batsman and now a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament. Tendulkar recently spoke in the House, asking that the right to play be made a legally mandated component of the Right to Education.

Sports should be considered an essential part of curricula and each person should get the right to play at school, he argued. This would also bring muchneeded attention to the lack of open spaces for children.

At the Hindustan Times, we have frequently reported on the abysmal per capita availability of open spaces in metropolitan India. But when we set out to capture how this affected children and playtime, even we were surprised by what we found.

Against the World Health Organization’s recommended minimum of

9 sq metres per person and a developed world standard of 20 sq metres, Mumbai has 0.88 sq metres, and even green Bengaluru has only 6.4.

And this includes ‘playgrounds’ that are used as dumping grounds for garbage;

maidans encroached upon by slums; and built-up public spaces like clubs and gymkhanas where only the few can play.

“Lately, even in housing societies with open space, much of the ground is covered in concrete and reserved for parking,” says Rita Panicker, CEO of Butterflies, a New Delhi-based NGO that has been campaigning for the right to play since 2010.

Open spaces are not a luxury, they’re a necessity, says Nayana Kathpalia of the Mumbai-based NGO Nagar.

“Land in Mumbai comes at a premium. Politicians, builders… they’re all eyeing it,” Kathpalia says. “So any free land ends up ‘developed’. Why do we need theme parks? What we need are open maidans, walking tracks, a few benches — that’s it.”

‘WHY DO WE NEED THEME PARKS? WHAT WE NEED ARE OPEN MAIDANS, WALKING TRACKS, A FEW BENCHES — THAT’S IT’

HEMANSHI KAMANI / HT MUMBAI ▪ (above): You have to watch how hard you kick the ball, when there’s a chance it could plummet several stories. But the terrace and building lobby are often the only spaces available for play in overcrowded Mumbai. “I get so bored. We just go...

SATISH BATE / HT KUNAL PATIL / HT SAMIR JANA / HT ▪ MUMBAI (below): There is an open ground near accounts executive Priya Warrier’s house in the eastern suburb of Chembur, but it’s the only one for miles, so there are often as many as 20 teams packed in when she takes her sons, aged 10 and 5, to play....

ARIJIT SEN/HT ▪ BENGALURU: A game of badminton typically needs racquets, shuttlecock, net and court. But for these kids in CV Raman Nagar, the lack of a playground means they must play the game in the lobby of their building.

SAMIR JANA / HT ▪ KOLKATA: There’s even a gully version of football in Kolkata, where kids play the openfield game in a narrow alley, as here in the residential area of College Street.

BURHAAN KINU / HT ▪ DELHI: Delhi has more green spaces, if you’re from a certain socioeconomic class. “There is only one large ground in our area and kids from miles come to play there. I don’t let my son go; it’s a hazard,” says Sushma Dahiya, 29, a resident of...