The police commissioner calls it Hyde Park. Perhaps the police chief has a yen for puns for the recently-opened Citizens? Park has a lot to hide. For years, the stretch of land adjoining the Victoria Memorial complex opposite Rabindra Sadan had been used as a ground for holding fairs and exhibitions, where everything from clothes and linen to leatherware and handicrafts used to be sold every winter, and often at other times too. It used to attract hordes of people who at the end of the day left behind huge mounds of garbage. Once the fairs were over, the ground turned into desert ? an eyesore with a huge drain running through it, and pride of place being accorded to the al fresco loos. Then environment activist Subhas Dutta stepped in and pointed out to the high court how the fairs were polluting old Victoria Memorial. The division bench of the high court ruled that by April 14, 2004, no fairs could be held there and that a green buffer was to be created there. Then Calcutta Municipal Corporation proposed a joint venture with Calcutta Police to turn the space into a Citizens? Park, where people could go for walks. Now the stretch has opened and visitors cannot help wondering why the police chief compared this barren, narrow strip to the 350-acre park in London, which has the city?s finest landscapes and where people go for pleasure and protest, and which Henry VIII had acquired from the monks of Westminster Abbey. When our photographer Pradip Sanyal went to Citizens? Park on Friday afternoon, in certain stretches the grass cover still resembled a moth-eaten carpet with puddles of water. He wondered how long the paving stones ? the variety already used in Park Street ? would last. For in a matter of months, the Park Street sidewalks have already started caving in. Flower pots, many of whose blooms have dried up, were strewn around. And as the court pointed out on Thursday, there were few trees in sight. Perhaps Calcutta deserves such a Hyde Park. Photographic evidence follows.

All the beautiful gardens of Calcutta had either a gazebo or a rotunda where visitors could either take the air, seek refuge from the sun, or simply sit and take in the beauty of the surroundings. They also had rustic bridges across waterbodies. Citizens? Park has heavyweight concrete versions of these light and airy structures. To cap it all these are intertwined with strings of tiny coloured lights. For everything has to be Technicolor. The gateways to the park are imitations of the ones at the Victoria Memorial entrance. But only rickety versions of the originals. The crude is what the Calcutta Municipal Corporation goes in for ? like its aborted city gateway.

The court is against the installation of halogen lamps because these could harm the heritage structure that Victoria Memorial is. The court wants these lamps to be removed. The direction must have fallen on deaf ears for some lamps were on on Friday midday.

For some strange reason lurid-looking dustbins in the forms of dolphins, giant pandas, kangaroos, alligators and other denizens of the animal world are so popular that they have been strewn all over the city. A ghastly chimp lies overturned like many other trash cans in Citizens? Park

Victoria Memorial is said to be awash with funds. But the authorities are scrimping when it comes to staff quarters. The contrast between the old and new is sad, to say the least

A clunking transformer by the side of the pathways is one of the many eyesores that one cannot miss at Citizens? Park. Are such strong lights really needed?

The centrepiece is the fountain. These are very ugly and showy. Yet they are seen everywhere. Another example of avoidable human intervention at a site which should have been left to nature.

An array of Victorian-style streetlamps long the pathways. But these are only lightweight versions that stand like a row of beanpoles. The high court has spoken out against these too.