Every morning and evening in Madakkara, the sound of football kicks and cycle bells reverberate alongside laughter, as groups of women and girls from the neighbourhood gather in their swantham (own) playground. Located in the heart of Kerala’s Wayanad, amidst the rolling hills and verdant paddy and tea plantations, lies this rare and unique space — Penkalikkalam, a playground designed exclusively for women.
Arguably the first of its kind in Kerala, this playground is the brainchild of retired policewoman and activist Vinaya NA, who set it up on her ancestral land, beside her home in Madakkara village, some 7 kilometres away from Sulthan Bathery. For Vinaya, who is also the president of the non-profit organisation WINGS (Women Integration and Growth through Sports), this playground is the space that she had “always dreamt of but never had the opportunity to experience,” a space just for women to play and have fun.
Since its inauguration earlier in March last year, the playground has grown to become a space for the neighbouring girls’ football and cycle polo teams to practise, as well as for women to play football or volleyball, ride bicycles, or simply walk and loiter around.
Segregation in pursuit of safety
Women-only spaces, like parks, are not a novelty in India, especially given the systemic lack of accessible and safe public spaces for women. In fact, this segregation by gender speaks to the absence of safety women feel as they traverse public spaces, where instances of street harassment, stares, cat-calls, and other micro-aggressions remain prevalent across urban and rural regions.
A cursory look at the existing women-only spaces in the country reveals that such parks have been gaining popularity over the years, especially in urban areas. This type of spatial separation is increasingly touted as a solution by several governments and municipal corporations to address gendered violence in public spaces — by creating more “safe” and “comfortable” spaces for women.
For instance, in 2023, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi planned to build 250 pink parks for women, equipped with open gym facilities and dedicated play areas for children, with its pilot project already rolled out in 2022. Cities like Bhopal, Meerut, Mumbai, and Hyderabad also have their own women-only parks, while Bengaluru has a designated women-only space allotted in one of its parks. Whether these spaces are utilised up to their potential, or are heavily regulated out of fear of moral policing (like in the case of a park in Meerut) remains an open question. Further, critiques of these governmental ventures point out that this could create further fragmentation of public spaces, and exclude vulnerable communities, such as transgender persons.
A playground of their own: Women’s right to playful leisure
With the exception of the Mumbra playground created specifically for women by the Thane Municipal Corporation in collaboration with the Mumbai-based NGO Parcham, there are not many women-only playgrounds in India, as opposed to women-only parks. The latter are often welfare interventions taken up by governments and/or urban authorities to address women’s safety.
In contrast, the uniqueness of Vinaya’s women-only playground lies not only in its assertion that women have the right to safe public spaces, but that women have the right to leisure, more specifically, playful leisure.
In India, the lack of leisure for women is a systemic problem. Reports indicate that unpaid domestic/care work obligations and subsequent time poverty compromises women’s agency and ability to make intentional choices, leading them to live lives that are mostly devoid of free time. According to the National Statistical Office’s Time Use Survey 2019, women across urban and rural contexts spend 4.2 hours more than men on domestic and care-giving duties, leaving little time for leisure.
Further, as scholars Shilpa Phadke, Sameera Khan, and Shilpa Ranade note in their 2011 book Why Loiter? Women and Risk on Mumbai Streets, women’s access to public spaces are conditional, even in supposedly safe Indian cities like Mumbai. These conditions include having ‘socially respectable’ justifications for spending their leisure time in a public space, and having taken necessary precautions to ensure their safety.
Critiquing the assumption that a loitering woman is up to no good, these scholars argue that women need to loiter and hang out more, and reclaim their leisure in order to enjoy their status as equal citizens with unconditional access to the public spaces that rightfully belong to them.
Vinaya’s playground is built around this very premise.
Interestingly, while Kerala claims to be the first state in India to develop a Gender Park in 2021, with planned initiatives such as a gender museum, gender library, convention centre, and amphitheatre, a playground is yet to make its way to this park. In this context, the creation of a women-only playground by a grassroots activist, with minimal intervention from the government, holds great significance.
Building a tradition of play for women
It was the “natural” way in which men in her locality gravitated towards their local playgrounds after work or school that got Vinaya thinking about the absence of women in these spaces. Her initial attempts to step into these spaces had her male counterparts staking claim to the grounds: “I often heard from the men things like, ‘This playground is ours. Our fathers and grandfathers grew up playing on this ground’. In a space where men played, we are aliens, outsiders. Because we never grew up playing on the ground. Because we, as women, never had a tradition of play, or a playground of our own. So I thought, if I make a playground near my house and call it a Penkalikkalam, the girls who’re growing up here could play here. They could at least say, ‘I grew up playing on that ground’.”
Interestingly, this is not the first time that Vinaya has questioned the status quo in the field of sport and leisure. In March 2002, during her tenure in the Kerala State Police force, Vinaya was selected to participate in the state athletic meet in Kannur, organised exclusively for the police department. She challenged the tradition of employing policewomen merely as sari-wearing placard-bearers for sports events, and argued for policewomen’s participation in the march-past. More importantly, she protested how women’s sporting competitions were considered as mere ‘exhibition competitions’ and demanded that the points won by policewomen be added to the overall tally of their sub-division teams.
This protest, although historically significant in hindsight, led to her suspension and eventual dismissal from the police force, which she reversed after a long legal battle. Further, it was her legal intervention that eventually led to the introduction of gender-neutral uniforms in the Kerala Police.
Today, flanked by flood lights on all four sides, Vinaya’s Penkalikkalam has become a space where women can gather whenever they want, be it day or night; a space for female friendships beyond the office and kitchen. On weekdays, women and girls start playing in the ground as early as 6 am, before work or school, and in the evening, they go on playing from 5 until 8 or 9 pm. On weekends, the ground is almost always occupied by women or girls.
Vinaya also ensures that the players in her ground are always well-fed by giving them boiled eggs or other nutritious food, all out of her own pocket. “Our women play everyday, even at night, and they walk freely around my town — to me, that sight is something. Because of this ground, we’re able to create a women’s presence at night. They don’t fear this space. To me, that is an achievement,” says Vinaya.
For Sajeena Shameer, a pre-primary school teacher and native of Madakkara, coming to this women-only playground made her wonder why she never considered local playgrounds as her own, and why she never went there to play. It was after coming to this ground and practising daily that she learned how to ride a bicycle. “I’ve noticed so many changes in myself after coming here everyday. I didn't even know what a football or volleyball was. Even when my son played or watched the game, I had not watched it on TV, because I didn't know what it was, even if I tried! But coming together with women on a playground, who are all like me, helped us have fun without inhibitions, regardless of skill. My body wasn’t even that flexible, but now I can do so many things,” she says.
Sajeena adds that the playground has not only changed how she viewed sport and exercise for women, but also changed her personality, and the way she spoke. “Now, even the way I talk has changed. I used to speak very softly, but on the ground, you can shout, you can speak loudly. All with Vinaya madam’s encouragement, because she’s always on the ground with us. The day I was finally able to do a full round on the ground on the bicycle, I felt so happy. I had that experience only because of this ground. The number of women who are joining us has only increased since then. And for the next generation of girls, this is a great space for them,” she says.
Within six months of its inauguration, the playground has had one of its regulars, 17-year-old attacking midfielder and class 12 student Mariya Varghese, get selected to play at the Kerala State Senior Women’s Football Championship, representing Wayanad district. Her mother, Silja Joshi, who is a homemaker, explains how having a women-friendly playground has helped her daughter achieve this. “She was very shy earlier, but the confidence that she got from being able to go to the playground whenever she wanted was something else. She has the courage to travel anywhere now. This may seem small, but actually, this is a significant change.”
As a regular at the ground herself, Silja stresses that such grounds need to be there for every woman, to get together with their female friends, with no specific purpose but play and leisure. “I was always ill, I suffer from asthma, multiple allergies, but when I started playing football for fun, I noticed that my symptoms have reduced. I always make it a point to walk to the playground as an exercise. Now, I can cycle, I can hang out with my neighbours, and have a friendly chat with them while playing on the ground. These are my joys now. My wish is for every woman to be able to do that. And for that, you need a women’s ground, right?,” she asks.
More playgrounds, more playful women
From being a self-funded venture, Vinaya’s playground has transformed into a space that offers training and coaching camps with the support of sports experts as well as the local community. When asked about her plans for the future, Vinaya says that she wants to start more Penkalikkalams around her, two of which are underway at the government schools in Cherumad and Kooliyad.
She emphasises the importance of women claiming public spaces as their own — beyond becoming a space for play and loitering, these spaces are crucial for extending women’s active presence and participation in society at large, and to establish their belonging towards a locality. “Every space should be a Penkalikkalam, it should be women-friendly. A world where there’s no discrimination, that is my aim. Girls and women must begin claiming the playgrounds and public spaces in their locality. They should never have this feeling that a certain space is not for them, because every space is for them, this world is for them, and they should feel that,” says Vinaya.
Amritha Mohan is a researcher and journalist. She is currently pursuing her PhD from the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University (Australia), and her research investigates women’s experiences in sport and physical cultures in Kerala. Gender, culture, sport, and media are her primary research interests.