Pramod Mahajan Kala Park, Outdoors

When I had two kids in quick succession, I remember packing my two-year-old and two-month-old in the pram, and waddling out with dull eyes, blaming the unfairness of motherhood; the kids were too young to be left alone and I never seemed to have enough time to get back into shape. When I walk into Pramod Mahajan Kala Park, and look at the massive space, it hits me: this is what I had been wishing for back then. Loads of green space to walk in.

It is not that there weren't any parks around. Bandra has three of them within a km of where I live. But nothing of this scale. The nearly-14 acre park — placed between Dadar's flower market and Dadar fish market, flanked by BMC's sewage operations and storm water drains department buildings on both sides and railway tracks to its rear — has two ponds. It is apparently home to around one lakh plants and to 180 species.