Sunlight, birdsong and dappled shade
Bursting with love for Cubbon Park, Roopa Pai touches upon all that makes Bengaluru’s ‘green cathedral’ precious, and the many who have fought through the years to protect it
Roopa Pai’s Cubbon Park: The Green Heart of Bengaluru (2022) will appeal to anyone who loves trees, cares about public spaces, and enjoys a hyper-local story of citizens rallying around their beloved park. Pai writes, “Cubbon Park is not just a neighbourhood… It’s a universe in and of itself, a consistently large-hearted, always contested, uniquely Bangalorean ecosystem fashioned as much of trees and flowers and insects as of hearts and souls and minds.” Her affectionate prose, dipped in nostalgia, would speak to those who are drawn to the outdoors and are always looking for an excuse to play in the sunshine, with a gentle breeze caressing them.
Few places can boast of fine weather throughout the year, and Bengaluru is one of them. Pai waxes eloquent about the “silence and birdsong and dappled shade”. On one occasion, she calls the park a “green cathedral”. What is so special about this place? Visit Cubbon Park and you will know why it is such a big deal to Bangaloreans. I lived there for a year, so I can empathise. (I am less sure about what Pai calls “the intrinsically liberal nature of the native Kannadigas”. Karnataka, like any other state, is home to people who are hostile to newcomers.)
While its official name is Sri Chamarajendra Park, most citizens use the older name Cubbon Park. Sir Mark Cubbon (1775-1861) came to India at the age of
25 and “proceeded to distinguish himself in both military and civil appointments”. He served as Commissioner of Mysore and Coorg. Read Pai’s book to find out why how this officer from the Isle of Man earned the respect of locals in India, and why they decided to honour his contributions with an equestrian statue cast in bronze.
Readers will enjoy Pai’s account of how the physical park — along with the idea of the park — has transformed since 1870, when it was founded. She writes about influential men who shaped the park’s history, including Kempe Gowda I, Richard Meade, Kumarapuram Seshadri Iyer, Gustav Hermann Krumbiegel, Dr Edward Balfour, Ganpatrao Mhatre, Mirza Ismail, CV Raman, Mahantesh Murgod and Rajeev Chawla.
There was a woman too — the Maharani of the Bahjang principality in Nepal — but she remains unnamed in the book. She funded the construction of a “fairy fountain” in Cubbon Park. It is home to government offices, a public library, an exclusive membersonly club and a dog park. It has a significant presence in the oral histories of queer and trans people, who used it as a cruising spot for years before the Supreme Court read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.
The park is also dear to immigrants looking to belong, to indie musicians, and to the animal rights movement. At the same time, it is associated, in the public imagination, with crime, drug peddling and commercial sex work. Pai showcases how these varying interests make Cubbon Park what it is to Bangaloreans.
The idea of writing this book was born during a conversation with editor Sudeshna Shome Ghosh. She wanted to commission writing on neighbourhoods rather than cities. Pai, who is the co-founder of a company called Bangalore Walks, zeroed in on Cubbon Park for personal reasons. It reminds her of the “popcorn-and-cotton-candy Sundays” of her childhood; it is also here that she was “successfully wooed” by the man she married. She used to visit this park frequently with her children. When they grew up and flew the nest, she says her “dog-child” began to accompany her.
Pai’s intimate relationship with her material has helped her write a book that is bursting with love. It captures why Cubbon Park is often referred to as a “people’s park”. It brings together the voices of fitness enthusiasts, musicians, activists and lawyers who have fought to protect this space when it has been threatened by exclusionary interests. The same set of facts would have landed differently if they were not suffused with emotion and a desire to reclaim leisure in “a global technological hub humming with frenetic activity”.
The book introduces readers to numerous initiatives that have sprung up thanks to Cubbon Park: a group of environmentalists who carried out an informal census of the flora and fauna in the park, food and healthcare for stray dogs, a queer-friendly yoga group, nature education initiatives for children. However, it does not give readers an opportunity to learn what the changing nature of this public space means for sex workers, trans women and homeless people when the well-off impose their ideas of respectability on it.
It takes a skilled writer to craft a non-fiction book that not only provides information but also raises consciousness. This book encourages readers to think about disabilities in the context of design, the well-being of non-human species, and the perils of ignoring nature in the rush to designate and design smart cities.