[Reader-list] An urban playground

[Rohan DSouza]

Hi,
Pls find below a posting by me on a particular playground in Bangalore.

Rgds,
Rohan

*Akkithimmanahalli ground*
Akkithimmanahalli ground*, situated in Richmond Town, Bangalore, is like any
other playground one can see in Indian cities or towns. The features being
an open maidan, where public access is free and unrestricted and various
groups play sports of their choice simultaneously. This ground is also a
feature of Bangalore, which has many such open maidans, unaffiliated to any
association/institution.

The ground is on a location where, like in many other places in Bangalore,
there used to be a tank. This tank known variously as Akkithimmanahalli tank
and Mud tank was in existence till the 70s. The main portion of the tank bed
now consists of three parts, home to three different set-ups, with three
different kinds of access.

One part, which is also the largest, is the Karnataka State Hockey
Association stadium complex, built in 1997, which consists of an astro-turf
pitch and stadium, association office and gymnasium, mini hockey pitch and a
residential block. Access to this complex is mostly restricted to members
and players only, except on occasions when matches are held there.

The second part is Divyasree Chambers, a commercial complex, which has many
corporate offices, located in it and was built in 1999. Access here also is
limited most of the time to employees, clients/customers and guests of the
offices located there. Though there are a couple of ATMs (Citibank and HDFC)
and a Bangalore One counter (where various utilities bills can be paid) in
the complex, which can be accessed by others as well. The third part is the
playground, which belongs to the Bangalore City Corporation and is
accessible to all.

The ground is in one corner of what used to be part of the tank bed and is
almost square shaped. There is a wall made of grills around it, with one
gate and small entry points at two other places. There are two rain trees in
the western corner of the ground, which has a round platform around it and
one near the main entrance. The soil is hard and has a smattering of small
stones. There is a small building along the northern boundary of the ground,
which houses an office for a government old age home. There are some
slippery slides, jungle gyms and other such play equipments at the northern
part of the ground.

Largely used as a space to play in, the ground is occasionally used for
festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi, Navaratri, Deepavali and some other
programmes. On a normal basis, it is a playground, where different groups
play many sports at the same time. The most prominent sport, being cricket.
One or two groups attempt to play other sports such as football and another,
which seems to be cross between football and cricket (which I shall for
convenience call, footcricket). The ground is occupied to its fullest
capacity during weekday evenings and most of the time during weekends. Some
people also play on weekday mornings.

Most of the groups, who play in the ground, constitute locals from the
neighbouring Shantinagar, especially from its lower income areas. The
language spoken most is Kannada, with a little bit of Tamil. The ground is
located in between middle and upper income group areas such as Langford Town
and Richmond Town, with Shantinagar being in the area adjacent to the hockey
stadium complex. The middle and upper class local youth, who live close by
seem to have moved on from playing here, in favour of the more 'sanitised'
institutional (school/colleges) play areas as well as private clubs.

Though largely dominated by the locals from Shantinagar, there have been
occasions earlier and now, where 'outsiders' have and continue to attempt to
find space to play here. The 'outsiders' in this context are broadly two
groups. One is the 'non-local locals', i.e., those who have come from
outside Bangalore and even South India, but live in this neighbourhood.
These include people (mostly students) from the northeastern states of India
and some migrants from Nepal. The other group of 'outsiders' constitutes
those who work in the various corporate offices in Divyasree chambers.

The most part of space is taken up by the locals, who mostly play cricket
and 'footcricket'. Space used by the 'outsiders' is relatively less and is
characterized by other sports such as football. One can see the northeastern
youth playing football in a truncated space in one part of the ground and
the corporate employees in another corner, playing cricket. It is very rare
that this composition of the playing area is different. The occasions when
this differs are when the locals haven't entered the field, mostly because
of the time of the day. During two such occasions, one was witness to a
full-fledged football match being played by northeastern youth and another
was when the corporate employees took center stage, literally, with their
cricket equipment. But, on both occasions it was times of the day, which
many of the locals did not consider as playing time.

Sometimes belonging to regional and class groups determines spaces occupied.
This seems to be determined to start with by regional/class belonging and
then in the next level national belonging. This area has many from Nepal
also who are employed as watchmen in the various buildings.  They also play
cricket, mostly on Sundays. I happened to play with them on two occasions.
On one of these occasions, when we were playing in one part of the ground,
another group, seemingly all locals started playing 'footcricket' near us.
In spite of seeming to have enough space for themselves, one or two from the
'footcricket' group attempted to come in the way of the bowler and batsman
of our group. A few such attempts were made and responses sought. When the
responses seemed to be mild enough, there was no more disturbance of this
sort. This seemed like an assertion of ownership of the space as well as an
invitation to challenge that.

One wonders whether this is a representation or a reaction to what is
happening at a larger level in the city of Bangalore, where physical spaces
in the form of land, cultural spaces in the form of festivals and
employment/livelihood spaces in terms of jobs/businesses are increasingly
being challenged by 'outsiders' and thereby making them grounds for
conflict. And is what one sees playing out here also, a response by lower
income groups/classes to changes of configuration in the city where a new
breed of public spaces, like malls, clubs are emerging, where access is
largely determined by income and class belonging? Is conversion of
traditional public spaces such as parks, tanks into restricted spaces,
through handing them over to private management, also contributing to these
contestations?

Playgrounds such as Akkithimanahalli face extinction due to attempts like
one by the authorities (Bangalore City Corporation) **, where they sought to
convert it and many other such grounds into underground parking lots. This
move by the authorities needs to be seen in the light where cities such as
Bangalore are increasingly being made upper and middle class friendly.
Therefore spaces, like this ground, that used to be used by members of this
class, but not anymore, are seen to be looked at as those which can cater to
different and new needs of this class at this point in time.

When one then sees all of this, which forms part of a larger design to
convert cities such as Bangalore into 'mega cities' with clear class
orientation and belonging, the contestations that happen in the playground
don't seem surprising anymore.

*Satellite map of Mud Tank area -
http://maps.google.com/maps?key=ABQIAAAA6c_jabZz8p68OmBSGUQ4-hR9cIphkSRpGuP1UpICwt_aYUuIuRT4k9Dgqf04wqMPR2l-GEkr3TpUNw&ie=UTF8&ll=12.962217,77.600427&spn=0.005374,0.009785&t=h&z=16&om=0
** Article on underground parking at playgrounds -
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/thscrip/print.pl?file=2007042219240400.htm&date=2007/04/22/&prd=th&