I have been worried about where children are supposed to play for a while now. This may have something to do with how I gallop towards old age and look at everything through the filter of nostalgia but is probably more in keeping with my usual dissatisfaction with the way things are managed by an uncaring government.

I thought about this again a few months ago while I was stuck in a cab somewhere between Kandivli and Goregaon. It was a place I had always known, yet there was little that seemed familiar on that particular evening. After a while, I recognised that my unease stemmed from an absence: there were no visible signs of happiness around me. I couldn’t see anyone smiling. Surrounded by vehicles, inside which sat grim men and women, we all contemplated choices that had brought us to that grid-locked corner of New Link Road. The other thing that stood out was how there were almost no children to be seen, as the cab passed beauty salons and restaurants. There were no empty spaces or shaded areas.