WACKO WALKERS

Sitting in Padmasana on a park bench, he covers his eyes with both palms and sobs in silence. Thereupon, with his fingers, he plucks some imaginary stuff from his eyes and ‘tosses’ it into the air before breaking into a broad grin. This bizarre drill apparently illustrates a yoga exercise that helps its practitioner get rid of his worries. Welcome to the Bangalore's park where weirdos of every stripe wander in and out unhindered.

As it happens, the park benches are as often patronized as the walking tracks. This is where the 'Shavasana' buff lies supine like a corpse and eventually drifts off into deep slumber. For him, it is merely an extension of his night's sleep post-intermission. His 'morning walk' ends when the park's care-taker wakes him up as a prelude to locking the gates.

The burgeoning parks across the city have spawned many such wackos who make the morning walkers' day. Take for instance, the insatiable Mr. ‘Gorging’ George. At first he loiters around the park chatting with a few windbags . Then he barges into the nearest restaurant and stuffs himself silly on idli-vadas. He doesn't exercise. To make him bend over, you would have to put diamonds on the floor! His motto: After loafing goof a while, after chatter eat a pile.

The ‘Trailing Wife Pageant' is one more amusing sight. Here, a young lanky husband walks at a blistering pace followed by his pint-sized chubby wife trying to keep pace with him. Possibly, this is his way of getting even with her for making him run after her during their pre-nuptial days.

If you visit the park at 5 A M, you find a few zombies who are at the fag end of their walking schedule. They might be either the insomniacs who entered the park by jumping the fence or the ones who slept inside the park overnight to outsmart the insomniacs. At least some of them could be the somnambulists (sleep walkers) who went missing from their beds after midnight.

'Deaf Adders' are the most common species that haunt our parks. You recognize them by the swaying of their heads or snapping of their fingers. They are deaf and oblivious to your approach from behind due to their being plugged on to the ipod. All you got to do, then, is to cough or clear your throat loudly and you get your right of way.

As you come out of the park, you find on the road a man shouting, "Stop Bruno..you bad boy..", as the Great Dane drags him on to a dunghill. Both the dog and his master are on their morning constitutional and it looks unclear who is taking whom for a walk. Moreover, it seems to me that the city dogs can understand only English!
*********************************************************************

A FREE HOT-DOG'S SAGA

"Hold your ground and dare him to attack. And remember - a barking dog never bites,"asserted my friend an armchair consultant, counselling on how to grapple with the dog menace. He could afford to be dog-matic on the subject, for, it was I who was sticking my leg out inciting the canine to sink his canines into my shin. Moreover, I didn't have a dog's chance of encountering a law-abiding dog who would say "Right-oh, sir. By barking I have forfeited my right to bite."

The chain of events that led to the crunch was set in motion a year ago when I embarked on a morning walk regimen (my jogging schedule had come a cropper after a couple of 'jog falls'). Forewarned of the canine peril, I had, after a few cur-sory visits to the lanes and bylanes of our town, mapped out the least 'dogged' course, shunning the touchy brutes with itchy teeth - the ones that were neighbour's enemy and owner's pride.

In due course, I made a tacit pact with the dogs by which I let the sleeping dogs lie and they let a walking bloke ply. One of them even took to me, giving his tail a brief wag at my sight, often admonishing a stray barker to keep his trap shut. Whenever I skipped a day he would give me where-had-you-been look. Yet, I had to watch out for the odd dog out that got into a foul mood possibly because he had been a butt of night-long nagging by his 'girl friend' who might have given a brush-off after a lover's tiff.

Then one morning, a pair of mongrels probably the top dog of the vigilante squad and his sidekick charged ominously towards me. Skipping the adagio, they went straight into agitato and then crescendo rendering their duet at the highest notes on the scale of C major. Needless to say, I showed them a clean pair of heels (breaking the World Record for 500M scoot). I escaped by a dog's whisker, but, by then, the stitching on my trousers had come undone at ten places turning me into an ideal prospect for the cover page of The Vogue.

After a brief hibernation, I kick-started my constitutional with recourse to the oldest trick in the book - of throwing crumbs to the militant mutts. And while the biscuit diplomacy became a barking success, my morning walks began to resemble the Pied Piper's procession, what with a pack of dogs in tow. It was a spectacle that the people en route woke up early to watch. But I carried on doggedly.

You May Also Like

A Cat-alytic Conversion
Vanishing Horse
Under-hand Cricket
Hitched To Habit