I had an interesting Sunday, don’t wonder why it took a Wednesday evening for a write-up on the weekend gone. I had asked my friends if they would like to hang out at Cubbon Park, a really huge popular park in Bengaluru city, India. So at 7.30 am, well, by 8 am, six of us were ready to explore the humongous park.
The place was buzzing with people and activity, there were people chasing domesticated dogs of all kinds at an area assigned as ‘Dog Park’. We then saw a bunch of kids performing a classical dance form at a bandstand that was built before India became independent. Apparently, the materials used to build the bandstand was flown all the way from somewhere in Europe, can’t remember which country. Although the way it looks has a very distinct north-east Asian vibe to it, so I wondered, who not fly it from a closer country like Thailand? Anyway, I am no architectural expert, it was just interesting trivia that was on display near the bandstand, where once upon a time, the band of the British Royal Airforce used to play music.
We did a lot of walking around and drank some terrible coffee. Then we headed to have breakfast near the High Court premises, which is also happens to be in the park. They were a bunch of people holding placards and protesting against a proposed construction in the area. We were having some amazing Idlis and Dosas from a food truck called IDC when one of the guys leading the protest march gave a shout out to all us pigs busy hogging, “hey IDC customers join us if you are done having breakfast!”. It was all kind of amusing but none of us joined them, I mean, I wasn’t even sure about their cause. My reporter friend however enlightened me about how they were protesting against the Govt which was planning to build a seven-storeyed building in the park’s premises and wanted them to bring it up on the outskirts of the city instead.
After breakfast came the weirdest part of our visit to the Park, two young guys approached us and asked us if we would be interested in watching “free stand-up comedy”. We were sold at the word “free”. So we were led towards a tree that had some benches around it and a guy was telling some jokes. Luckily, we chose to stand and watch and not sit on the benches. Because that guy was saying some really cringe cringe kind of jokes.
“Have you guys seen the movie PK? How many of you have seen the movie PK raise your hands”
Most of us did.
“Do you remember, the actor says that in his planet nobody wore clothes. Imagine how nice it would have been if it was the same on earth. The crime rates would go down. Imagine a girl is getting into a share taxi and the guy who is already sitting inside, his small Bhim (he was referring to a penis) becomes big, she will see what his intentions are and she can…,” I can’t exactly remember what he said, because I really wanted to just disappear from there. His jokes were just awkward, weird and bad. Nobody laughed at what he was saying so he asks “what happened, are you guys not thinking?”.
You have to applaud the guy’s confidence, or I guess his attempt to cover up the awkwardness of nobody laughing. Because he either thought his jokes were too intelligent for the audience to understand or he knew they were really bad so he thought he could mock us and make a joke out of it. In my head I thought “yeah, I am thinking, which is why I am unable to laugh at your jokes”
Anyway, he then started to talk about ironing, something on the lines of “who likes ironing? nobody right? imagine your father ironing and sweating a lot while ironing….”
“Can we please leave?” I whispered to my friend.
“Yes, please”
And we started to walk away. The two guys who had led us there asked us if we didn’t like it and we just gave them an awkward smile. We then headed to the dog park to stare at cute pets. After which we went to the art museum which was also right outside the Park’s premises. After entering the museum and looking around at some of the Tanjore and Mysore painting, I realised I had visited the place a couple of years back. But nonetheless, it was worth a visit, considering the tickets for locals was less than half a dollar.
After exploring the museum, we walked through the park again, which had skaters and cyclists zipping by. Really made me nostalgic about when I was a kid and used to skate. Let’s just say it was a fun, weird day and I would like to go back to the Park as soon as I can. And maybe watch some free stand-up comedy again. But not the same comedian.