Shrinking Spaces

The Indian economy is growing, so is the population, everything in this country is on an upward trend - for the good, people say-, and the market is a proof. The exploding urban scenario is here to stay. Glass castles called workspaces and neighborhoods that have become 30 storied apartments dot the landscape. Playgrounds and open spaces are a thing of the past, and no, I am not talking about 2100 or some alien planet, but the very places that we are living in.

As we walk in the streets today, we can see these simple realities surrounding us. Roads are overcrowded, buses eyeing for space where only a car can go, cars eyeing for space were only a bicycle can go, bikes on footpaths if there was one. I see children playing out in the roads as their places of play have been taken over. Morning walks can be accompanied with the whiff of stench from uncleared garbage as roads have become their residing ground, houses with boundary walls an artifact to be preserved.

The way we are hurtling forward, wars will not be fought over religions or boundaries, but over want of space to live. No wonder the outer space and the arctic seabeds have become the next focus of the so-called developed nations. Before its too late to be unwinded, let the creative spaces get to work to get the open spaces out in the open. Let there be more spaces created for the future generations to grow up.