I grew up in the ‘90s and the early 2000s when the norm was Doordarshan and mobile phones were just getting noticed. Evenings after school and college were spent lost in the world of books — one week, it was harsh Russian winters, next week, it was an adventure in the jungles of Africa. My favourite reading place was the terrace of our house. If I let my eyes wander, they would notice a lone woman gathering clothes from a clothesline or rest on young men and women pacing up and down with a book in hand. If I was very mindful, I could feel the mild breeze and hear the beautiful silence. Perhaps those lingering memories make me yearn for calm environments even in masses of urban concrete.
In 2007, I moved to Bengaluru for work and stayed in Jayanagar. The locality had an inscrutable, but endearing charm, am sure it still does. It was in Jayanagar, in my search for calm urban spaces, that I discovered the parks of Bengaluru.
My weekend routine became fixed. After filter coffee and a Darshini breakfast (idlis and vadas floating in delicious sambar), I used to head to the neighbourhood park, with The Hindu and a novel in hand. To read the happenings around the world from the vantage seat of a cool park bench and to have the muffled sounds of fellow Bengalureans going about their business — walking, meditating, children playing — for company, was an indescribable pleasure. To be physically in one world and simultaneously experience other worlds in imagination — perhaps that was the feeling I enjoyed most, every week.
Now, in my late 30s, I live on the other side of Bengaluru — the east, with its famous old bakeries and cosmopolitan vibes. Over the last few weeks, I have rediscovered the weekend joy of spending time in the city’s parks, thanks to my five-year-old daughter’s weekend classes. I see the omnipresent smartphones — people impatiently swiping left and right, young adults brisk-walking with their Bluetooth headsets or talking with their parents or relatives.
With Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn turning people’s lives into a series of enviable photos, anecdotes and achievements, I was frustrated by the lack of genuine human stories. But on lucky mornings, I get to experience silence in the park and cherish it. Once in a while, I just sit and observe the humanity all around me: in the happiness of a toddler taking his first steps, in the gracefulness of a lady practicing her yoga routine, in the loud calls of children sliding down swings and going on the merry-go-round, in the hurried steps of old gentlemen trying to be regular at their morning walks and in the stories from fellow parents, waiting to pick up their kids after classes, I feel warm and at one with the world around me. It is like seeking islands of coziness and peace in the otherwise everyday life of hustle and bustle.
I remember what Pablo Neruda wrote in his poem ‘We are many’:
“I should like to see if the same thing happens
to other people as it does to me,
to see if as many people are as I am
and if they seem the same way to themselves.”
coolshiv@gmail.com
