Not always the media screws up- there are times when they do take an initiative and work towards betterment of the place they live in.
Raahgiri is one such initiative. A leading media house of Delhi in association with a leading fitness company joined hands with the city's administration to create a traffic free area in the heart of Delhi- Connaught Place.Every Sunday for a couple of hours from 6 am to around 930-10 am, all traffic is blocked out of the inner circle and the radial roads of Connaught place and the place is opened to the common man to indulge in a plethora of healthy activities, which are also very entertaining and pleasurable.
We had been reading about the event in newspapers and decided to check out for ourselves. We decided not to use our own transport, as obviously there would be parking issues. We took the city metro and got off at the Rajiv Chowk Station,the hub of the city metro services. Getting out of the underground station, we were amazed to find people passing us by on bicycles, roller skates, heads thrown back in happiness- in general very vibrant and alive.
Mothers with little babies in their strollers, daddies strutting their well exercised muscles, uncles and matronly aunties huffing and puffing away in their track suits or salwar kameezs,or even shorts, tourists clicking away ,all formed a part of the great Sunday event. It was not restricted to just the chronologically young. The spirit of every individual there was young.
The loud blare of music drew us to the first activity station where the visiting ladies in all shapes and ages were dancing away, competing to be the most innovative dancer. No inhibitions anywhere there- We kept walking and came across people playing football in the middle of the road which is normally so heavy on traffic, that it takes a long time for a pedestrian to cross.Gleeful shrieks coming in from the cyclists, or a goal shot into the tiny makeshift goal posts.We walked some more ahead and found a couple of middle-aged people sporting some sort of uniform and playing cricket - we realised that anyone who signs up to play gets a white T shirt, sponsored by some company, whose name we cant recollect.Cycles could be taken from the organisers at various points - some form of identification had to be given at the time of collecting the machines. This is all free of cost..
And there were different activity stations at the radial roads, each with a different activity-if one had live zumba classes , the other had aerobics or yoga or even street painting.Typically the activities which were high on energy were the ones with maximum participation-the crowd was not the typical Delhi crowd ,painted and dressed to kill- but an absolutely genuine- fun loving one. Pashatuks decided to throw decorum out of the window and give into the urge to sit in the middle of the road. The warm tarmac of the road did feel very nice and warm initially, but would probably be more suited to colder climes-no one batted an eyelid when people broke out into crazy dancing for no rhyme or reason.
There was some activity or the other for every individual.Why, even the elderly could sit on the side and reminiscence of an era gone by, when this downtown area was actually congestion free and smile.
This concept of traffic free zones is fairly common worldwide, but in India this is new, and the emerging Indian citizen has happily embraced the initiative.
For a more detailed description of this event you could could always check our video upload on youtube.
We had been reading about the event in newspapers and decided to check out for ourselves. We decided not to use our own transport, as obviously there would be parking issues. We took the city metro and got off at the Rajiv Chowk Station,the hub of the city metro services. Getting out of the underground station, we were amazed to find people passing us by on bicycles, roller skates, heads thrown back in happiness- in general very vibrant and alive.
Mothers with little babies in their strollers, daddies strutting their well exercised muscles, uncles and matronly aunties huffing and puffing away in their track suits or salwar kameezs,or even shorts, tourists clicking away ,all formed a part of the great Sunday event. It was not restricted to just the chronologically young. The spirit of every individual there was young.
The loud blare of music drew us to the first activity station where the visiting ladies in all shapes and ages were dancing away, competing to be the most innovative dancer. No inhibitions anywhere there- We kept walking and came across people playing football in the middle of the road which is normally so heavy on traffic, that it takes a long time for a pedestrian to cross.Gleeful shrieks coming in from the cyclists, or a goal shot into the tiny makeshift goal posts.We walked some more ahead and found a couple of middle-aged people sporting some sort of uniform and playing cricket - we realised that anyone who signs up to play gets a white T shirt, sponsored by some company, whose name we cant recollect.Cycles could be taken from the organisers at various points - some form of identification had to be given at the time of collecting the machines. This is all free of cost..
And there were different activity stations at the radial roads, each with a different activity-if one had live zumba classes , the other had aerobics or yoga or even street painting.Typically the activities which were high on energy were the ones with maximum participation-the crowd was not the typical Delhi crowd ,painted and dressed to kill- but an absolutely genuine- fun loving one. Pashatuks decided to throw decorum out of the window and give into the urge to sit in the middle of the road. The warm tarmac of the road did feel very nice and warm initially, but would probably be more suited to colder climes-no one batted an eyelid when people broke out into crazy dancing for no rhyme or reason.
There was some activity or the other for every individual.Why, even the elderly could sit on the side and reminiscence of an era gone by, when this downtown area was actually congestion free and smile.
This concept of traffic free zones is fairly common worldwide, but in India this is new, and the emerging Indian citizen has happily embraced the initiative.
For a more detailed description of this event you could could always check our video upload on youtube.
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