Walk In The Park

Where we currently live, we are less than a stone’s throw from a park. A lovely strip, it is cordoned by our residences on one side, tracks to the commuter train on two others. The far border from me is a main road, the path to our son’s school. An unsurprising combination of playground and park, its undulations nevertheless hold a charm in any light of the day and given preciousness of space in our urban suburb, a true oasis.

It was Saturday morning and as I am wont to do, woke up beating the early bird as it were. An old rule that I religiously follow is one that my wife instituted 6 months into our marriage; that I not engage her in any conversation at 5 am, especially if she is asleep, especially on a weekend (the fact that she waited 6 months to kick me out of the bedroom early in the am was the first sign that she possessed a reservoir of patience that I could occasionally tax!). I stepped out of our place to grab the newspaper that the paper boy surely would have thrown by our door by now. When I opened the door, I did not find the paper. The world had to wait for me to catch up with its events.

I turned to head back into the house and perhaps risk engaging my wife in a conversation, when I got a shimmering glimpse. The leaves from one of the trees in the park reflected the emerging light of pre-dawn. This was a light of day I had never seen in the park. The park was showing a new side of itself. I decided to take a walk in the park.

I. Darkness at Dawn

I entered the park through the west gate and was immediately confronted by reality. Of the trees that clustered at the gate, one bore the burden of proclaiming the darkness in the human soul. I knew the message. I knew the reality that awaited. But it was there only if I went to the right. I decided that dawn had not yet broken and it was my right to postpone my confrontation with reality, as much as the newspaper boy had postponed the delivery of the newspaper. I decided to go left and circle back to this spot at the end of the journey.

I decided to go left and enter the world of beauty, memory and imagination.


II. Flow

The first area that one passes by, on a clockwise route from the west gate are tennis courts. Any one in the U.S, would instantly recognize the green and red hardcourts. There were literally a dozen of them, giving ample room for tennis afficianados. Dew was breaking out on the nets. It was quite amazing to see a several hundred dew drops hang off the tennis nets and decide a moment in time when they would drop the court – a dance of the dew drops.

As I stared at the courts I thought of Mihaly Czitzenmihalyi. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. He wrote a book in the mid 90s titled Flow. A seminal work in the order of Maslow’s pyramid in the pantheon of psychology ideas for the industrial age. Mihalyi researched a number of high achievers including atheletes, government leaders, artists, successful entrepreneurs and the like. And he asked them one question – at the height of their creative output, how did the feel and why? Mihalyi describes that physical and mental condition – when Kumble takes 10 wickets in an innings, when Tiger gets a ball from a trap, over the water between trees to a flag, when Javed Akhtar composes for a scene, when a business man makes a successful gamble – as Flow. And it is Mihalyi’s insight out of his research that everyone can experience Flow at any moment, a more democratic framework than Maslow’s pyramid where there is ascension to self-actualization only after pre-conditions are met in a systematic way.


The reason the tennis courts set me of on this train of thought was that the most striking example illustrating Flow was through the game of tennis. Any person playing tennis can experience flow. If a beginner plays with a beginner, both get bored. If a beginner plays with an advanced player the beginner gets demotivated. But if the beginner plays with an intermediate or the intermediate with an advanced, then the former is ‘stretched’. The process of stretching and learning and accomplishment, when one is deeply immersed in it, creates a human condition that is uplifting and deeply satisfying – that Czitzenmihalyi has coined Flow.

Having thus paid homage, I bid adieu to the dancing dew drops and moved onward.


III. Chai

The embankment at the far end by Dean road is rather steep. I could easily imagine sledding down here when the snow came. Today it was a slope that was catching the pre-dawn light in various shades of gray. There were steps that cut through it to lead up to the road. I imagined that if this was in India, this would have been a perfect spot for a chai-stall. I can see in my mind’s eye a little thatched affair, with maybe one low watt bulb inside and a man in a lungi inside that you could barely see. His bicycle would be parked outside. Out of the darkness of his thatched stall would waft the most glorious smell of chai. I would know him by name and he would know my preference. Our conversation would be cursory, but would signify a connection more than transaction – one of common humanity and shared ancestry. The 3000 year old Indian heart would be beating in both of us.


My happiest memories, and ones that would be tough to shake from their perch at the top, were ones when my class-mates and I would bike to and fro to our playcourts at the college(basketball, tennis or cricket) as the I called. We would set off in the mornings on weekends or evenings on weekdays to play. We would be on our bicycles. We would stop at the chai-stall on Avinashi road as a ritual. I would fall sick if I drank that stuff today. But in that day, the ritual, the companionship with my friends, the isuali of sports, the energy of youth all combined made for happiness that is tough to replicate; and it is a wonder that such happiness came effortlessly.

As I made the turn away from the embankment, this memory faded and I was headed west in the park.


IV. Stranger On A Train

I was walking parallel to the tracks, against the flow of the trains that would carry passengers to the city. I did not expect to see any trains so early in the morning. I walked my shoes crunching gravel. I was sucking in the morning air; there was a nip to it that was refreshing.
To my surprise, a train did come by. I could hear the familiar squeal of the wheels on track as the train made the turn to go alongside the park. It is an exaggeration frankly to call the it a train. Tram, would be a better description. But since I am new, I would hate to offend the residents of this fair city, should that be taken as an aspersion. The ‘Train' came along, with one car only given it was a weekend. There was a solitary passenger on this car going into the city. It was a woman and she appeared to be reading a book. I wondered what caused this woman to wake up, take a pre-dawn train into the city on a weekend. I must admit I was even more curious what she was reading!

V. Reality bites

I had made a full circle in the park and was back at the west gate. Dawn had broken. The morning started with the industrial clank of trash trucks on the streets and trains on the tracks. The sun had broken free of the horizon and was casting its familiar light on the park. The lengthened shadows were beginning to recede. The dance of the day had begun.


My date with reality still awaited. The tree with the proclamation still was still there, and as a good citizen and a concerned parent, I had to acknowledge its presence. In New Jersey in recent years, a law was passed called the Megan’s law, honoring the victim of the namesake. It is tough to acknowledge that the civilized world is still a jungle that has predators and prey. I momentarily stopped and eyed the predator and hoped without confidence that the modern correction system had changed such affrontery, if not at least police it effectively. With a shudder, I moved back to the west gate of the park.

I could now see the newspaper perched by the door. Ah! The 100 page edition of the weekend NY Times. The world awaited me and so did my coffee. I hoped that I could get one cup into my system and 2 sections read, before the obligations of spouse-dom and fatherhood took over for the day.

As I went back into my place, I glanced back at the park. It was there, this oasis, waiting for parent and child, master and pet, softball and tennis enthusiast to come and enjoy the day. But I was done – I had taken and unexpected pre-dawn walk in the park, and felt the better for it.