A Eventful Walk in the Park
Of Daily Life Encounters, Nature, and Visual Stories.
Life, raw and unedited, unfolded one morning as I braved the slowly warming temperatures and set out to explore a larger park in a global IT destination city.
Through this visual story, I hope to give you a sense of the daily lives we encounter outside of Twitter/X, Facebook and Instagram.
As I rounded the bend of the loop, a quarter mile in, I came across this group of women near the park administration office. What could they be doing ?
I edged closer as the trail wound, spotting the male supervisor in a white shirt holding a register.
It then dawned on me - he must have been taking attendance! The group dispersed a minute later.
A subset of these women then joined the path in front of me. I inquired of them, and they confirmed that it was indeed a daily roll call, and they are park workers employed by the city’s municipality.
I complimented them on how well maintained the park is, but the more outspoken of them, an older lady, said they constantly hear park visitors complaining to their supervisors to the contrary.
Apparently, some park visitors even send pictures of leaves strewn around the park to prove that the workers are not doing their job.
She mentioned that some suggest the workers should clean the park overnight, perhaps for the benefit of morning walkers.
The lady then remarked that she wanted to suggest to those members of the public who wanted zero leaves in the park to grow a tree or two in their backyard and see how well they can keep their yard leaf-free.
A case of X, and the mobile camera working against these workers.
They are, of course, government workers, and unionized. So while they may receive a reprimand, or docked pay, drastic consequences may be rare.
They have few perks or daily influence, but job security is critical to their families as it is everywhere in India. The job ensures their children can attend school with hopes of a better tomorrow.
Still, their annoyance that morning, at the petty complaints of park goers, and the subsequent lecturing by management, was palpable.
Leaving them behind, I walked past contractors assigned to re-paint the curbs.
Note the paint buckets being reused. These paint buckets are repurposed to carry water, leftover construction material, or as trash cans. In some neighborhoods in different cities, I have even seen them used as garden pots with holes created in the bottom for water to flow through to the mud plate underneath.
I continued walking, hoping for some shade. The morning sun felt as though it had already reached its noon peak, with no breeze to temper its rays.
So I headed to a quaint area that I had not seen in other parks: a therapeutic garden. A sign at the entrance instructed visitors to leave their footwear outside the enclosed area.
Beyond the gate, I found two circular paths, with the innermost leading to a circular setup featuring eight different natural elements grouped inside rectangular partitions, forming the circle. This was a healing circle!