Why is Mumbai so children-unfriendly?

Last month, the whole family assembled in Mumbai for an annual family reunion. Except for the in-laws who live in Mumbai, six adults and five boys (ages 5-14) descended from the US. They got off the plane all wired up, each clutching their gadgets in hand.

They focused intensely on the mini screens, supposedly caught up in saving the earth, or destroying some swamp monster, or whatever the heroic task they were undertaking. For the next two days, I watched these almost motionless kids, except for the rapid movement of eyeballs and fingers. Who were these zombies I wondered?

When I raised the subject of this gaming addiction, the hapless parents lamented what else could they do? Since arriving in Mumbai, they had come up with several ideas to keep the boys occupied. They tried to access local facilities like public pools, badminton courts or tennis courts only to draw a blank. There were none — the few they came across were ‘members only’ exclusive clubs. The boys could hardly venture out on the streets unsupervised as they were simply not capable of crossing roads without being run over. The June heat sapped the boys and they could barely function in the smells and the sounds (incessant honking) of our city.

Taking them out to lunch seemed like a huge task. ‘Can’t we go to some kids restaurants?’ they asked, dying to get out and eat some familiar food after they were subjected to dal and rice at home. Having lived most of my life in Mumbai, I was hard pressed to come up with a kid’s friendly restaurant. Eventually, we landed up at a popular café in Colaba. The boys were surprised to find the café did not have kid’s menus or, indeed, kid portions of servings. The smoothies were weird, everything had too much pepper, and the jalapeno poppers had no jalapenos. The one meal outing was clearly not a big success.

No help was forthcoming from the internet, as the wi-fi was not functioning. After a dozen desperate calls to the ‘internet guy’ to come and fix it, he finally arrived on day three and threw a lifeline to these lifeless kids.

Several searches on the ‘Top 10 things to do in Mumbai’ yielded some wildly inappropriate things for young kids. Amongst the few that seemed safe, a trip to the Gateway and a boat ride ended in two of the kids getting violently sick in the heat. A walk along Marine drive at night was more pleasant, but certainly not terribly exciting for the children. The littlest one seemed excited at the ride on a Victoria, but the older kids politely declined saying it was too ‘lame.’

Where were the bowling alleys, kid zones, cycling tracks, soccer fields and the swimming pools they asked again and again?

In the end, I joined the parents in encouraging the children to stay safe at home in air conditioned comfort, and get on with their games and music. But I have not been able to get this out of my mind. What DO young boys and girls do in this city for entertainment? Apart from gulli cricket, that is.