06 February 2013, 01:43 PM IST
It's one of the four towers of Bangalore, which marked the boundary of this once tiny town. Perched on a granite hillock in Lalbagh, it's surrounded by a small grill which protects the base. The pillars and canopy give it a stately look. There's an Archaelogical Society of India board, citing some section of some rule which warns people who damage it of dire consequences. But if you want to know a little more about the tower — who built it, when, and so on — you'll have to peer closely at a fading stone inscription tucked away in a corner.
Sunil and I did just that this Sunday gone by. We've come here, separately, as small children with our parents, many summers ago, and played in this park. We'd trotted off to see the deer in their enclosure and probably had ice-cream at the end of the walk in the park, abiding memories of those times.
Now, we're walking again, but there's no ice-cream at the end of it. It's coffee at MTR or Adiga's — that's what growing old does to us. But this is not about growing old. At least, not for Lalbagh, which seems ageless in its beauty. For those not entirely familiar with Lalbagh, let me just say it's a park worth visiting.
On a whim, Sunil and I decided to meet on the first Sunday of every month for an early morning walk in Lalbagh. It was a way of keeping in touch, with fitness as the icing on the cake. For a long time, we'd lived in different cities, coped with our families and joys and crises. Long ago, we'd grown up and studied in the same small town and cherished memories of wonderful teachers and common friends. Many friends tell each other 'let's meet' but never do. We decided Lalbagh would help us stay in touch. It did, we don't meet otherwise. And so to Lalbagh.
It's one of the last bastions of vast tracts of greenery. And it's such a pleasure to see people enjoying it. Walkers, joggers, runners, single men, single women, couples, gambolling children, families, groups of men, groups of women, fitness freaks, amateur photographers, bird-watchers, tourists – they're all there. There are helpful signboards, drinking water and clean loos. The lake in the middle sparkles in the dawn sunlight and the winter fog sometimes threatens to shroud the park in an eerie calm.
Our Sunday walk typically lasts for an hour or thereabouts. Inadvertently, we've taken to walking along the periphery and we run into the same pretty faces after a while. If this was New York's Central Park, we'd probably smile at them and nod at each other but this is Bangalore and such gestures would be viewed with deep suspicion. So we walk on grimly, talking about this and that and catching our breath when the going gets tough. When we call it a day, the sun is well and truly up and we go our separate ways, into the chaos of the traffic outside the serene park.
We hope to meet again next month. We may change and go all over the place, but Lalbagh is not going anywhere. There have been misguided attempts to change it, build a car park at one edge but that was stopped in its tracks.
For our sake, we hope Lalbagh doesn't change too much, for there's a lot it has to offer for generations to come.
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