As expensive soft play zones flourish in India, children are turning away from the nostalgic and healthy charms of grass, soil and sunlight.
As a child, my evenings followed a sacred ritual. My grandfather and I would stroll to a nearby garden, me clutching a small ten-rupee rubber ball, ready to immerse myself in play. For two blissful hours, swings and slides dictated my world. By eight o’clock, hunger gnawed at my stomach, signaling a well-earned dinner. Bedtime was a matter of mere minutes - a belly full of home-cooked food and the soothing lull of bedtime stories made sure of that. If the adults in the house were engaged in some esoteric discussion beyond my comprehension, I would doze off wherever I sat, comfortably oblivious. It was an uncomplicated time, dictated by fresh air, movement and real human interaction.
Fast forward a few decades, and this idyllic scene feels like a relic of a lost civilization. The parks have vanished, gobbled up by an insatiable demand for parking spaces. Parents, ensnared by ever-expanding work hours, have little time for leisurely walks. Grandparents, once devoted storytellers and companions, are lost in the endless scroll of WhatsApp forwards and Instagram reels. The bedtime stories of yesteryear have been replaced by the flickering, dopamine-inducing glow of short-form videos. The dinner-table arguments that once ignited familial debate over which TV program to watch are now obsolete, thanks to individual screens.
In the 1990s, when my sister and I squabbled over TV time during dinner, our mother would broker a peace deal. Each of us got a time slot for our preferred show. We accepted the terms without protest, as if obeying a higher authority. That collective experience, no matter how trivial, was formative as it forced us to engage, negotiate and compromise. Today, the very concept of communal viewing has disintegrated. Each family member dines in digital isolation, absorbed in their own universe of content. What was once an intimate, shared experience has become eerily transactional.
The collapse of shared playtime extends beyond the dinner table. Outdoor play, once the cornerstone of childhood, has been relegated to a luxury - one that requires money, planning and structured time slots. Playgrounds have given way to commercialized play zones, where parents fatigued from the relentless demands of modern life willingly shell out 800 rupees for a 90-minute session of supervised fun. Here, children scramble over sterilized climbing structures while their parents sip overpriced lattes, reassured that the cushioned floors will absorb every fall. These spaces, designed for maximum convenience, create an artificial experience of play where risk, negotiation and unstructured exploration are carefully engineered out of existence.
At these play zones, birthday parties have evolved into extravagant affairs. Instead of simple games in open parks, children celebrate in themed play areas, replete with ball pits, neon-colored slides and background music designed to mimic the latest YouTube sensation. The idea of pausing for something as quaint as cutting a cake is almost unwelcome as some children are too enthralled to bother. Gone is the joy of communal, organic play, where friendships were forged in the scrapes and tumbles of a game of tag. Instead, these celebrations serve as an initiation into the age of transactional entertainment. Play is no longer something children do but something their parents buy for them.
This shift is not merely about nostalgia. It has tangible consequences. The disappearance of unsupervised outdoor play has disrupted the natural rhythms of childhood. Without physical exertion, children remain wide awake long past midnight, restless and overstimulated. Meals, once a simple affair dictated by hunger and routine, have become a battle of wills. Without the exhaustion of the playground, without the slow and natural buildup of appetite, dinnertime is now a prolonged negotiation aided by screens. What was once a straightforward cycle of playing, eating and sleeping has collapsed into a fractured reality where exhaustion belongs only to the parents.
The question is how do we reclaim childhood from the grip of commercialized play? The answer, paradoxically, lies in simplifying our approach. Parents need not spend a fortune on curated play experiences. A return to the basics - free play in open spaces, simple birthday gatherings that prioritize human connection over spectacle - can restore a semblance of balance. Children do not need meticulously designed play areas but need the freedom to climb trees, chase each other through fields and scrape their knees. They need to learn the art of negotiation not through the silent isolation of a personal screen, but through the messy, unpredictable dynamics of real-world interaction.
The modern world has made play a privilege, rather than a right. It is time to reverse this trajectory. Let children rediscover the joy of unstructured, spontaneous play in the spaces we once took for granted. Let parents trade passive observation for active participation. Let dinner tables become forums of conversation rather than silent feeding stations. Else, the grim alternative is a generation of children who know only the glow of a screen, the sterility of an indoor slide and the loneliness of a world where even play has been commodified.
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