Tag: union square park

The Jairaj Model

So finally here is the follow-up to the Union Square Park post. Basically most parks in Bangalore follow what I term as the Jairaj model. Even a number of parks that are older than 10 years old have been remodeled using this model in the last few years.

K Jairaj became the commissioner of the BBMP around the turn of the millennium. The story goes that his parents, who live in Banashankari 2nd Stage, complained to him that they had no place for their daily evening walks. And so Jairaj takes this piece of barren BBMP land (on 24th cross, close to the BDA complex) and converts it into a beautiful park. So the park provides for walking paths, lots of shrubs and flowering plants and a small play area for children. Trust me, it’s really beautiful.

This was soon followed by the development of the Hanumanthanagar park by then-corporator later-mayor K Chandrasekhar. It again followed a similar model – and given its greater area included fancies like a musical fountain (if I’m not wrong). Again a big hit among the residents, especially the middle-aged and elderly who now had a nice place for their morning and evening walks.

The trend was set. Following the success of these two parks, all small parks in Bangalore started to be remodeled based on these two. Trust me, they are all really good looking and most are quite well maintained. But it remains that the primary purpose of most of these parks is to provide a venue for middle-aged and elderly to go for morning and evening walks, and a small area for children with slides and swings, and little else.

Normally we take this for granted and wonder what else a park needs to do. But if you visit some of the better parks abroad (I’m taking the example of the tiny Union Square Park here) you’ll know what you are missing out on. Parks are now gated and shuttered, and don’t let people in during the day time (which is good in the way that it provides time for maintenance). And they are unidimensional, which is sad.

And I’m told that there is now a major battle in several areas between youth and middle-aged, with respect to proposals for playgrounds to be converted to parks.

And these parks are strictly “walkers parks” and not “runners parks”. Not so long-ago I used to go to the nearby Krishna Rao park for a run every morning. I gave up because of the traffic jam inside the park. Narrow pathways on which aunties and uncles would walk abreast in large groups, and so it became more of an obstacle race than a leisurely morning run.

Union Square Park

So earlier today on my way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I stopped over at Union Square for a bite. I picked up a falafel sandwich from the Maoz Vegetarian outlet nearby and walked over to the Union Square Park to eat it, while sitting on a parkbench and eyeing little girls with bad intent…

So while the park is not large, I really liked the way it’s laid out. Wide pedestrian pathways cutting across it in all directions. One side of the park playing host to artists selling artworks, a farmer’s market (this is on Saturdays I think) and the likes. The north side had a little children’s play area, which had swings and slides and similar stuff. And then in the middle there was a “dog run” area, where people brought their dogs and let them out to play ball. It was wonderful to watch.

The best thing about the park was that it was literally open to the street, and had no gates. While there was a notice there that the park was closed from midnight to 6am (I don’t know how that gets enforced) it was literally open to public, for people to come over and sit down for a bit, look at the kids (maybe with bad intent), the dogs, purchase something on the sidewalk, and all that.

Of course this being winter there were no leaves on the trees around, and little grass (the irony being a “keep off the lawns, they are freshly laid” signboard, while the said lawns were covered deep in snow), so one could look around far and wide.

Anyways I think there is a distinct lack of public places like this in India. The Union Square Park is not large, but it is well laid out and accessible which makes it so popular. The problem with parks in India (specifically in Bangalore) is that they have one objective – to provide good space for morning walkers. That way the effectiveness of the park is vastly reduced.

I hope city authorities develop spaces like this in Bangalore, and elsewhere in India; though not at the cost of playgrounds, of course.