Why so sullen?” Lady Flora could recognise the scowl on Sir PM’s face from a mile. “Seems as if you did not have a good Sunday.” The friends were hoping to catch a glimpse of the stunningly lit façade that looked even more resplendent as Christmas drew close. “See this mark on my elbow?” He gestured to his right arm, while gently rolling up the sleeve of his kurta. It looked slightly swollen and was reddish in appearance. “Oh, my goodness! Whatever happened to you,” Lady Flora shrieked. “I had dropped by to meet my school friend, Rustom, who was staying at the Grand Hotel in Ballard Estate. We decided to go for a ‘leisurely’ stroll; little did I realise that even at 8 am on a Sunday, we would be greeted with season cricket balls flying around from every direction! Our walk was curtailed rather quickly because one of those cricket balls hit me on my elbow; the pain was reminiscent of my boyhood days of playing gully cricket. A rude awakening that one isn’t young and these childish pursuits aren’t worth it. I had planned a lovely walk in this quaint neighbourhood that Wittet had developed with fantastic vision but it wasn’t to be…”

Lady Flora wanted to know more, “So, are you telling me that this is a recent development? Why don’t they play in the maidans or open spaces?” Sir PM did an eyeroll. “Open spaces…ha! I don’t think our city has ‘space’ for it in its vocabulary. At least not any more. The encroaching of these quiet lanes and streets by cricket-crazy folk is another reminder of how starved the city is for spaces to engage in any kind of sporting activity. And one pastime is bound to affect another, as we are seeing with the cricket affecting strolling in this sub-precinct. It was going to happen sooner than later. With redeveloped buildings in particular using up all the surrounding space that used to once exist in front of each standalone building, where do people pursue these weekend activities? The maidans are already packed, as you would have seen. Oh, and there were other activities too—biker groups were vrooming around in top speed disturbing the charm of this scenic neighbourhood, as their compatriots filmed them, while in another street, a film shoot was underway; we were shooed away by rude safari-uniformed men who had cordoned off the area and behaved as if the King of England was to arrive any moment, and not even an ant could cut cross the boundaries. What audacity! I bet he wouldn’t have been able to even spell Ballard Estate correctly,” sighed Sir PM, while being extremely careful to not hurt his elbow as they made their way into the quiet calm of the place of worship and seated themselves in one of the back rows to enjoy the crisp evening breeze.