#063 The Senior Citizen's Park
I went to the RBI Layout Shell station to get the air checked in my Kylaq. Since I was done with work and the gym, and I did not have much to do, I parked my car on a street by a small park in a corner of RBI Layout. It was supposed to be a relaxing walk. I did not want to be disturbed by notifications, so I left my phone and keys in the car. Because of this, I did not exactly remember which turns I took from the main road to get to this park.
I did a loop around the park, found it boring (although a young school couple did not, and were going at it on a bench). As I was growing increasingly bored doing the same loop, and found the tree-lined streets in the distance more appealing, I decided to do away with the park and the lovebirds, who probably appreciated my respect for their privacy.
There's something to these lovely tree-lined streets that Bangalore seems to have in abundance — particularly in the JP Nagar and Jayanagar areas. Apparently, South Bangalore has one of the highest tree densities in the whole city! We have a good makeup of Indian Beech, Trumpet trees, and Gulmohar (Kempu Turai in Kannada).
So, I decided to explore random streets in the area based on vibes alone. The idea is that when you find something of interest, you pursue that. This particular neighborhood, especially in the cool late evening hours, has families playing badminton on the streets, and dog owners pulling these curious fellows from wherever their noses take them. A left here, a right there, random U-turns, and heck, I even spent 2,000 steps following a golden retriever who was often sniffing at the foot of trees. After an hour, I had completed my 10,000 steps, and only then it dawned on me that I did not make note of the place I parked the car, or of the turns I had taken.
I told myself that one of the perks of having a shit memory is that you can experience the joy of discovering things more often. This has been a very useful thing — I can often be delighted by reading the same books over again, watching the same movies or TV shows, and even revisiting the same places seems fun. I decided that it would be like a fun treasure hunt to find the car.
This good mood and optimistic attitude lasted for about 40 minutes. It was getting quite dark, and the streetlights were turning off. All the dog owners were slowly finding their way home. Now was the time for street dogs to dominate — and I'll tell you one thing, I have no sympathy or love for these menaces, especially after they collectively barked at me. Seeing these street dogs bark, the dogs from inside the posh villas joined the barking contest, and I was caught in the crossfire, afraid to move in either direction lest a provoked dog bite me.
It was at this point that I decided to drop my pride and go ask someone for help. An old man, dressed in a polo T-shirt and shorts, was taking his beagle for a walk (he looked very similar to Arnold, my friend Gobi's dog, whom I got high on hemp sticks when he left him under my care). The old man spoke good English, so without any language barrier, I made small talk and asked him about all the parks nearby. He gave me clear instructions to get to each of those parks, but after a long day of Jira ticket-hopping and Slack jiu-jitsu, my brain was pretty fused out.
Even though he told me where they were, I went running about blindly trying to find the car. After another 20 minutes, we crossed paths again. Seeing my situation, he decided to take the beagle for a longer walk to help me find the car.
We went looking from one park to another until we finally found the car parked near a tiny senior citizens' park at the other end of RBI Layout. Tired and finally relieved, I found some comfort in seeing that I had walked 19,000 steps in total today. Maybe I should do this more often as part of my weight-loss effort; it might help me develop my navigation skills too!
As we parted ways, I thanked the old man, and this chonky beagle gave me quite a look. I would say that I did him good by making him walk extra. I should have asked his owner to put him on a diet plan even.