Siar Park by Mr. Ashish Ghosh

We were conducting a drama workshop for the kids in Chittaranjan Park (C. R. Park in short). It was some 20 years back. A robust four-year-old kid—a restless hurricane—had hardly participated in any of the activities. He had the patience to stop and participate for one and only time. One of our resource person was telling a story in which a clever jackal (or Siar) from Panchatantra featured. The deadly Jayanta entered in a crash, listened to the story for a while, and announced, “Hamare Park mein ek siar hai” (There is a jackal in our park). He vanished and no one could trace him for about half an hour. Suspicious, we located him in a corner of the house, totally engaged in painting the face of a docile girl. “What are you doing?”, we asked. Prompt came the reply, “Yeh siar hai”(Here is the jackal). The girl burst out crying. 

There is lot in a name. Two groups of original plot holders fought hard to name the colony after their respective chosen names—one being 'Purbachal' denoting the settlement of the people from the east and the other wanted to commemorate an almost forgotten leader Chittaranjan Das. The damaging campaign against Purbachal was ‘Purbachal in south Delhi!’ the later had won the race. People now may call it in affectionate names—C. R. Park or Siar Park or simply Chitto Park. The Park is the stand alone. Indeed, we have many more parks here compared to other areas. 

About C.R.Park, images are stored in my memory box. I really saw a jackal emerging from a rock, looking at us suspiciously, when I first visited the place demarcated for the displaced persons from East Pakistan. Most probably it was 1968-69. We could hear the cry of peacock from a distance, saw shrubs and stray trees, lizards and crows. We had arrived to displace the original inhabitants.

On a twilight evening of 1973, I was walking alone from Chiragh Dilli to our newly occupied house in E-Block—one of the very few houses that had come up by that time. I had a feeling that I was not alone. I looked back and forth, and found no one. As I continued walking, I could clearly feel that someone was following me. Suddenly, I noticed a snake, with hoods raised, was crawling at my own pace barely three meters away from me. I stopped, it also stopped. Our eyes met. Looking at each other, we walked for a while. Assured that we did not mean to harm each other, we parted ways. Beyond this personal experience, I did hear about snakes crawled up in a cupboard or emerging from the space adjacent to the Market No. 2. Now, C. R. Park is free of jackals, snakes, peacocks, shrubs and many more of its original flora and fauna.  

Talking about flora and fauna, I have seen several changes over the years. The barren rocky landscape was transformed into a greenery comprised of trees reminiscent of East Bengal’s mango, jack fruit, banana, drum stick, etc. Local government also chipped in with its own plantations. 

Gradually, variety of birds found their home in these trees. Try visiting H-block park in the evening, you will be charmed by the cacophony of the retiring birds. In our E-block park, my wife once counted 32 variety of birds in different points of time. 

From the nineties, we found another round of change—single storied buildings were gradually turned into multi stories ones, with four new markets with pucca structures, and chaotic traffic aided by release of unrestricted number of cars on the streets. The new is replacing the old—the drum-sticks and mangoes virtually vanished, ornamental plants emerging in balconies, sparrows unable to build their nests in bygone pelmets, monkeys periodically visiting C. R. Park after being uprooted from their habitat at Tughlaqabad Fort.

Culturally speaking, we have been propagating Bengali culture through Chittaranjan Memorial, Bangiya Samaj, two Mahila Samities, Kali Mandir Society, and Raisina Schools, and of course, Pujas and theatre. In spite of all these, we find a shrinking space of Bengali language and culture. We miss the community bond as exemplified by pre-90s era. We miss the rehearsals on rooftops, proliferation of Jatra, and holiday mood in preparation of intimate community festivity. Now we hear a lot of lamentation that the present generation is not learning Bengali, and some effort to impress upon the parents to send children for the purpose.  It seems, we are face to face with another change towards the ‘practical’—career, corporatization, new social relationships in cyber space, globalization. 

Change is the law, we are told. Direction of change is a matter of projection. Over generations, we have seen that people migrate constantly, in search of greener pasture or livelihood. My grandfather was in Khulna, my father in Berhampore, myself Delhi, and my daughter in Mumbai. In many more cases, children have moved out of C.R.Park to abroad locations. Nostalgia remains as the treasure for this ever migratory species, and Siar Park is no exception.