My Right to Green.

When I was a toddler, my grandparents would take me to India Gate for balloons and ice cream.

We would sit on a cotton sheet on the grass. Dadi and mum would take out a small picnic basket and we would buy a packet or two from the Popcorn Walla. This happened year after year, the only open, green, public space we felt was rightfully ours.

When I grew older, I would take my mountain bike to Rajpath - the last remaining place in Delhi with no buildings hampering your view. Rightfully ours.

For someone growing up in the world’s most choked city, what’s a child’s right to green? I’m not sure anymore! And my country’s leaders are giving children like me the option of a smog tower?? By uprooting hundreds of trees?? 

Why couldn’t the venue for new buildings move to other areas?

Why shouldn’t Delhi’s children have the right to clean air, fresh water, and beautiful, green landscapes?

There is the Yamuna river. I wish it didn’t have filthy water. Just to be able to walk by a clean water body, feed the ducks, wave at boaters riding by? What would it be like for the children of the city? And I wish it didn’t have to take Delhiites a 7-hour road trip to visit the nearest green forest. We do have the Aravalis and the ridge to be redeveloped. And Rs 20K crore would be enough, my teenage brain tells me, to redevelop the city into a green, pollution free space for its children and not for the politicians. Stop the Central Vista Project and Clean up the Yamuna instead.