The reason for closure of Park is, believe it or not, of all the things in the world, “Maintenance”!!!
I for one find that quite implausible.
This Nageshwara Rao park is about half a kilometre walk from my home . I often go for a stroll there.
It’s very poorly maintained , overcrowded most evenings. It gets flooded during monsoon seasons. At its gates roadside food is sold by grimy hawkers in unhygienic stalls. The park’s walkways and benches are in a perennial state of disrepair … and the general landscaping and upkeep of the park’s greenery is, in fact, pathetic …
Nageshwara Rao Park is not really a park in the real sense of the word. It’s a travesty of a park.
Half its area is an unruly playground where dozens of street urchins from nearby tenements and slums play all manner of games all at once in real rough and tumble style … In fact, senior citizen walkers like me often run the risk of colliding with boisterous boys running around everywhere or getting struck by a football shot .
A third of the park area is an open gymnasium and children’s amusement area combined .. Karate classes and break-dancing gurus teach their wards under the trees. You won’t see anything like a lush well-mown grass lawn anywhere here. You’ll see weeds and brambles, of course.
There’s also one small area inside the park on which is erected a ramshackle covered shed. This is where often local community events are held … Local youth bands practice singing and dancing to loud recorded rowdy-rap and cinema music .. And this is probably where exactly the Yoga Day event was planned to be held by local residents of Mylapore and Abiramapuram… That celebration now been effectively stymied .
I am now eagerly waiting to see if the closure of the work is truly for maintenance purposes or to prevent Yoga Day celebration . That will be known clearly after the Park is reopened . If I see the conditions there to be just as pathetic as it always usually is … then the real intention behind shutting down the park becomes very evident .
This Park I know 50 years ago was a nice quiet sylvan spot in the heart of Mylapore . Age and egregious abuse has now ravaged it to its rump state. To hold a yoga session inside this park would actually be an insult to the very idea of Yoga … and yes… it would also be rubbing salt into the wounds inflicted upon the fragile landscape of this Park over the years caused by sheer neglect and scant respect for nature .
Sudarshan Madabushi