Public space for senior citizens: Greater Chennai Corporation Park, owned by a gang of elders

Often, we return to things that we realize we have left behind for good. The reasons for reconsidering or doing those things may vary, but they may be designed for similar purposes. A child learning to walk is given a walker for gait training. An elderly person whose legs are unsteady is given a walker to restore gait. Young adult and older adult (aka senior citizen) interaction is an uncannily similar genre. A group gathers around a tea stall to enjoy the evening breeze; Another group does the same on park benches. And the excitement of meeting one’s team members does not diminish with age.

When this writer introduces himself and announces the purpose of his visit to the Greater Chennai Corporation Park on Bhagat Singh Road in Thiruvalluvar Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur – to conduct interviews for a series exploring what public spaces, especially parks, mean (more appropriately, what they should mean) to senior citizens – to S. Rajarathinam, the elderly have just stepped into green space. He wants the group to assemble before questions are asked and cameras are clicked. The group of seniors numbers 15 or so, and it will take a long time to fill the benches. So, as soon as his team members join Rajarathinam, this writer asks for permission to start asking questions. Being a Kottivakkam resident, Rajarathinam lives further away from the park than everyone else, but the evening ritual is sacred to him and to others too.

The camaraderie draws them to this evening meeting, but the maintenance of the park has ensured that it will remain the venue. The park boasts of its status as a plastic-free park through a board. Maintaining that status is a big challenge because it requires cooperation from the visitors. The gardener sees to it that he and the watchman keep cleaning up any litter, including plastic, left by any visitor. On the day of this writer’s unannounced visit, there was no plastic waste in the entire park, not a single piece of it, except what was dutifully thrown into the dustbin.

The placement of benches at this GCC park on Bhagat Singh Road in Thiruvalluvar Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur is not particularly conducive to conversation. A 15-member senior group that interacts every evening would be better off having a seating arrangement so that they can easily face each other. , Photo Credit: Prince Frederick

This realization changed the focus of this report a bit – not so much changing the focus as expanding it. What can parks mean to people at the end of their lives and what can they teach to those just beginning. A board titled “Plastic Pollution Free Tamil Nadu” shows how plastic can be hidden in plain sight, hidden in useful items of everyday use that are not themselves plastic. Another board lists healthy foods. These may be messages for everyone, especially impressionable youth.

The GCC park looks clean and attractive in terms of provision of greenery and facilities, especially the two levels of walkways, one tiled and the other just concrete. The park is maintained by Rialto, a private entity.

Although they are still not at full strength – in fact, far from it, they are only a third of their normal strength – the seniors agree to a snap of them sitting on a bench, against the backdrop of a traveler’s palm tree with fan-like leaves. In the frame are Sadananda Krishnan, Janakiraman, Munuswamy and Rajarathinam. Rajarathinam requests that their names be mentioned. He asks watchman Zakir Alam to pose with him for the camera. He was politely told that not all 15 members of the group could be mentioned; Now only they are present. They also revealed what they were doing in their first active innings – in other words, the organizations from which they had retired. He expected the report to detail this, and was politely told that it would not help the report in any way. He himself is proud to mention that he has worked with Sarvodaya Sanagam in Thanjavur.

The above conversation revealed something about being a senior person away from the everyday hustle and bustle of life and the people still stuck in it. The former wants to listen; And hanging out with people at the same life stage is your best option for finding listening ears. The rest of the world overtakes them very quickly.

And to interact with peers, they need a comfortable park—the tea stall stopped working for them several decades ago.

How the benches are placed matters. Located on Bhagat Singh Road, this park doesn’t have the best seating arrangement – long concrete benches are placed side by side. To face someone with a moving jaw requires considerable bending and contortion of the neck. But the park makes up for it in other ways, in fact many other ways, given the senior gang it patronises.

Benches and benches placed in a circular configuration are conducive to conversation. Senior gangs anywhere will adopt it.