Beginning with my neighbourhood!

Hi people!

I have decided to start my tryst with the pen(virtual and real).This being my first blog,I felt like giving you all a small glimpse of my surroundings and it's effect on me till now. The musing...

I decided to take a late evening walk in my neighbourhood, yesterday. Walking in a pretty non-appealing but well-organised colony cannot be said to be very refreshing for the mind.Up I walked towards the main road to be amidst people,after a few hours of aloofness.The current scene in our colony makes it even harder to be with people.A road dug-up on it's sides with stones and gravel spread about,giving it the feel of a never-before walking plaza.In fact, the delight of walking in the middle of an erstwhile busy and vehicle-only road made me feel 'lifted'.The normal footpaths have are non-existent and lead to the creation of a wide,foot-only path due to barricading and metre-deep trenches on parallel sides of the direction of foot-march.The markedly visible,unidentifiable pipes in the metre-deep trenches are nearly completely covered with some men doing some more digging and other men doing some pipe-wire engineering,the description of which escapes my factual brain.Whereas, the women surrounding sacks of cement(or maybe even sand,I am not sure,as always) are helping the digger-men either by being digger-women or by clearing the sand and piling it up on a nearby heap.

The foot-plaza(i.e the main road) is compartmentalized into many sub-footplazas for the convenience of we pedestrians.Something for the pedestrians,finally!!Up and down from the sub-footplazas are the residential lanes.Due to the trenches,humanity here felt the need to build bridges to connect these sub-footplazas to the residential lanes.A new kind of bridge.The Sack-bridge!!It's strong, it's curvy(and hence,sexy!) and maybe the shortest bridge to help both the pedestrian and the occasional motor-biker!!

As I look at my colony with more observant eyes, I start finding it a little more appealing.There are these light-starved but nevertheless happy trees enjoying their freedom from 'shishir'.And the Indrayani bungalow(sadly) stood behind three such trees.The three trees(one of whom I name Sheela,what's in a name yaar!) literally beg it's inhabitants to start paying their electricity bills.On the other side, Sheela and her friends face a decently-lit Vamanrao Udyan, a parabolic road separating the visually antagonistic and contrasting landmarks in Dahanukar Colony. This Vamanrao Udyan used to be the site for my shy playfulness for a short period of time.As I look at it now,I notice one new play equipment.The waist-high semi-circular jungle-gym.The basketball court with the two nets being separated by gravel, is the court witness to many a physical battle!The jogging track which is an ill-fit for any 2-feet wide plus mortal still exists.I remember stepping aside every two minutes to allow the other 'jogger' to pass by or (rarely)pass through.That's one bad jogging track!Then the three bhai-bhai-bhai slides.Small,medium,large.I hated the small(for obvious reasons).Enjoyed the medium.But detested the large one because I could not climb up the slide from the bottom of the butt-rester!Then the mini merry-go-round and the mini gymnasium and of course the best place to hide-the water basin,remind me of my days here.I used to come here as a primary school-kid with my Mom and infant sister.We had a Rs.340/- pass to the garden,which we all valued because of it's high cost and great play infrastructure!

As I end a day of retrospection,walking around my colony,going back to my playful-kid days I bury my left foot into a gravel mound.Shaking my foot and chappal and thanking gravity for allowing the gravel to get off me,I once again come back to the current realm of thoughts.Even I am in a state of repair,like the foot-plaza of my colony.

Stepping over the sack-bridge I enter my lane and walk down the narrowing but well-lit lane and sloping path which leads me to my building.As I walk down, I try staring at the faces of the bike-riders riding upwards,only managing to guess the age and sex of the rider as he/she zooms by.

Not really refreshed,but happy nonetheless I return to my shed.The uncertainty remains,it does not zoom by so easily!! :-)