Playground at St. Mary’s Road fills a void

A look at two playgrounds well known among the youngsters. Ever since the playground at the RK Mutt Road-DGS Dinakaran Salai junction was shut down for Metro Rail work, this space has been on the ascendancy

Splitting the workweek in the middle, Wednesday has arrived presenting faint but heartening contours of the approaching weekend. At the Corporation Ground on St. Mary’s Road though, the workweek is in suspended animation and the weekend well and truly enthroned in its place.

The dateline is January 31 which is now crackling in the crematorium of time. The hour hand is hovering around ten. The playground is doused in floodlights. And it is divided among two ball games: two cricket and two football matches are under way, differentiated by varying levels of intensity. A good number for the middle of the week, and certainly around that hour. The balls cross paths causing temporary disruption, but nobody is complaining. The ball returned to the rightful patch, the game resumes.

Patronage for this Corporation playground swelled ever since the one at the RK Mutt Road-DGS Dinakaran Salai junction was taken over by Metro Rail work.

Both playgrounds were cut out of the same cloth. Besides a shared pin code (Chennai — 600028), they came with floodlights. Anyone with an observant eye would recall the similarities. Both came with metal-wire guards mounted on the compound walls to keep the tennis balls thumped hard and high by the bat from straying on to the roads. This playground slots into a pocket of land created by the interlocking arms of RA Puram First Main Road and St. Mary’s Road as neatly as the tray with the wooden splints would into the cover of a matchbox.

It draws cricket and football enthusiasts from a wider geography. On the day of The Hindu Downtown’s visit, a team composed of residents from a neighbourhood near Luz Corner was in action. A trivia: This playground has a mascot — a mongrel ‘Vellai’, named after the white colour of his coat. However, he carries patches of ochre, having rolled in the patch on the western side of the playground, characterised by chemman (red sand). Vellai draws widespread love, but remains uncapped, waiting for his debut in cricket and football. He however does not let the disappointment get to him: he plays fetch with a reserve tennis ball brought by a cricket team..

The hour hand on the clock has just glanced past 10, and reportedly, around 30 minutes have elapsed since the floodlights were switched off. One pole with multiple lights is lit. Except for a handful of youngsters leaning on their motorcycles, likely back from work and catching up for their customary late-evening klatsch, the playground is deserted. And it is Friday night (February 2). In one corner, a giant metal board keeps the construction of a boxing arena from casual eyes. The evidence of the intense work behind the view-cutter is the mound of earth piled up parallel to the board. The patch leading to the work site bears a crisscross of tyre marks, left behind by vehicles delivering materials or transferring debris. One lone spot has a scatter of wooden boards readily associated with construction activity.

The rest of the playground continues to serve habitues, but it is difficult not to draw it into comparisons with lunar surfaces. For those familiar with every sand particle in the playground, it is actually an improved version. Until a few months ago, earth excavated in stormwater drain work was heaped up at the playground.