Pune is abuzz with a new
civic concept called ‘Happy Streets.’ This of course is a figure of speech, a
transferred epithet, i.e. the streets are not happy -- you are. One could
extend the analogy to say that you, in some way contribute to making the
streets ‘happy.’
So like the NoMoZo which
was held very successfully years back in Panjim and Vasco, ‘Happy Streets’ cordons
off a street every Sunday for fun-filled activities for 3 hours between 7 a.m.
to 10 a.m. The effort to reclaim the
roads – a Times of India initiative -- is laudable except for the sometimes
dank weather. In Goa the NoMoZo was from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on ‘Sun’day where
the sun itself seemed to step out on the streets to play ball!
‘Happy Streets’ has been
carefully steered away from Main Street, Pune --where there was a similar move
earlier -- following objections from shop owners complaining that it affected
business. Tucked away in Kalyani Nagar ‘Happy Streets’ features zumba, yoga and
aerobics, rent-free bicycles and a live musical jamming corner. There is even a
‘Bachpan gully’ where one can relive
childhood games like hopscotch, marbles or pitthu. What fun it would be to sail
those paper boats, those kagaz ki kashti
in the puddles by the wayside!* ‘Happy
Streets’ is also a drive to clamp down on needless noise pollution created by
mindless motorists and ‘to improve the quality of life in the city.’
In Mumbai with the proposed
move to annex the verdant Aarey Milk colony green cover for a (hideous) parking
shed for metro rail -- which would mean
the hacking down of 2298 trees -- they seem to be doing just the opposite. It
was here that I romanced Queenie --we even took a brief boat ride in the lake
at Chotta Kashmir searching for the words to say. The place made its way into a
poem of mine, eulogizing the spirit of Mumbai with its well-designated
breathing spaces. Putting streets here would only tilt the balance against us.
Let’s preserve the ‘quiet, wet green’ at #SaveAarey the mass tweet campaign.
It was on the streets that
82-year old veteran Pansare was shot down in nearby Kolhapur last month.
Dabholkar was shot in the streets of Pune in 2013. The cases have not been
solved. Like the overcoat that is stolen from the simple clerk Akaky Akakeivich
on his way home in Gogol’s story ‘The Overcoat,’—and who dies later -- death
did not spare critic Boris Nemtsov who was gunned down on the street outside
the Kremlin around last week.
Perdido nas avenidas, e achado nas
vielas, [Lost am I in the avenues, but I find myself in the
bylanes] go the lyrics by Portuguese singer Rui Veloso. Many of our streets in Goa are so
suffused with garbage and night soil that a morning walk is out of the question
now. Can we make our streets happy?
*Song on childhood sung by
ghazal singer Jagjit Singh; pix of 'Dream Streets' by Gandha Key inspired by Jorge Luis Borges' poem 'Daybreak' - courtesy britishphotohistory; published in Gomantak Times Weekender, St. Inez, Goa on 8 March 2015.
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