View from the balcony

The maintenance person was using a leafblower to clear away all the leaves in the park opposite my house. A couple of years back, I went through a phase of being completely addicted to SB Mowing's YouTube channel. He would approach strangers' houses and offer to give their lawns a complete makeover for free, cutting overgrown grass, clearing leaves, pressure washing walkways until everything looked pristine. The transformations were stunning. Homeowners would often stand there overwhelmed, some seeing the actual ground or the clean lines of their curb for the first time in years.

I was hooked. He did it with such attention. It looked like effortless action, or what in Taoist philosophy is described as “wu wei”. If we are completely in the present moment, our actions will go effortlessly, without friction, and accompanied by focus. So much so, that it's almost ecstatic. I wanted that too, minus the work. Anyway, the algorithm or I got bored, YouTube stopped showing me his videos and switched to different kinds of what I eat in a day content.

Since I moved here 1.5 years ago, the tiny 70m park across the street has looked neglected. Gulzoo, my cat, loves it when I take him for walks here. He has a lot of textures and terrains to explore in a tiny, unkempt park. I, on the other hand (at 5ft 6in), don't particularly love going behind trees, inside hedges, stepping over heaps of leaves, sometimes even trash, after every ten steps.

People in Delhi have a lot of gripes with Resident Welfare Associations, but my previous RWA was rather nice. The president would listen to everyone's issues, and the roads and parks were kept quite clean. People would sometimes still litter, but at least I saw workers twice a day. I had arrived to my new house with high hopes from my new RWA, but to my disappointment, this association was largely inactive^[1], contributing to the persistent neglect of the park.

I hadn't seen a single maintenance worker actually do any work in this park…until today! I finally saw one, and he was using a leafblower—equipment I was familiar with thanks to SB Mowing. I was immediately reminded of the videos I used to watch obsessively. I could now see it live. I was hooked, this time outside my screen. I don't know how long I watched, but I followed him as he blew every leaf toward the walking track. Without actually doing anything myself, I experienced wu wei. It really was meditative. Then I noticed he'd missed one corner. I wanted to resist the urge to shout from my balcony.

I couldn't.

"Bhaiya, woh bhi!," I shouted. He looked around, trying to trace where this obnoxious voice was coming from. When our eyes met, he asked where? I pointed to the spot, and he smiled gently.

While the American YouTuber I was obsessed with cleans unkempt yards for free, calling it "lawn care meets community service," that kind of volunteering doesn't really translate to my urban landscape. In New Delhi, we don't all have individual lawns to tend—it's mostly community parks maintained by RWAs or the municipal corporation. I think our urban individualism prevents us from taking on laborious tasks for neighbours or strangers. Most of us don't have the time, the habit, or honestly, the service mindset. In cities, it's easier to outsource—there's always someone we can pay or an app we can use.

As I justified all this in my head, I thought of the one person I know who volunteers her time for community spaces. My mother, living in a small Indian city where the community mindset still somewhat persists, is a true conservationist who loves plants and trees. She goes around her society to prune flowers outside people's houses and in community parks. She knows maintenance workers aren't constantly available, and that if rose bushes aren't pruned in time, they won't bloom. The apple, it seems, has fallen far from the tree—or perhaps I've just become too lazy.

The worker got the corner I pointed to. No spots were missed. It was such a satisfying feeling. The lazy apple watched from her balcony as someone made things beautiful for all of us.