A Love Letter to Cubbon Park
reminder of how parks are important in the busiest cities
I usually find myself in Cubbon Park because of a reel.
I watch a beautiful video online, and I get inspired. I think “I musttt go there.”
Sometimes I go with friends or even alone, simply because I want to spend a few hours somewhere that feels different from the rest of the city.
But I rarely leave the park feeling the way I expected to.
I go looking for a pleasant afternoon and somehow leave with big clarity about my life.
Cubbon Park sits right in the middle of the city, surrounded by the busiest roads and constant movement. Outside its gates, there is traffic, noise, work, deadlines, people rushing from one place to another and more. Bengaluru has increasingly become a city where being busy almost feels like a requirement. There is always somewhere to go, something to finish, something to achieve.
And then there is Cubbon Park.
You walk in, and the pace changes.
It is one of the few places where you can touch grass, literally and figuratively.
You can walk around without really having a destination, trying to cover as much of the park as possible because every part seems to have something worth looking at. You can sit under a tree and simply exist. Eat some fruit. Read. Take a random video because suddenly, surrounded by all that green, you feel like making something.
And somewhere in all of that doing nothing, you start thinking again.
About the things you want to make. About the things you want to become. About all the interests and ideas you’ve collected but haven’t yet had the skill, discipline or patience to pursue properly.
The park reminds you that you still want them.
Maybe that’s what makes Cubbon Park a reset button. It doesn’t solve anything. Your deadlines are still waiting. Your responsibilities haven’t disappeared. The city is still loud outside.
But for a while, the noise doesn’t seem to reach you.
And you’re not the only person who seems to need that pause.
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Walk through the park and you find an entire cross-section of the city. Children running around. Older people taking their walks. Friends sitting together. People reading alone. Runners meeting for their run clubs. Skaters. Community groups. People simply lying on the grass and doing absolutely nothing.
Everyone seems to have their own reason for being there.
And perhaps that is the beauty of it.
Cubbon Park doesn’t demand a reason from you.
You don’t have to buy a coffee to sit there. You don’t have to pay for an experience. You don’t have to consume anything. In a city increasingly shaped by commercial spaces and the pressure to constantly spend, produce or perform, there is something quietly radical about a place that lets you simply be.
It is large. It is green. It is simple.
And maybe that is why it works.
After a long walk through the park, I usually end up at the library. Sitting there, surrounded by rows of books, writing and ideas, feels like a natural extension of everything the park has already stirred up in me. All the things I find interesting and passionate about come rushing back, literature, journalism, films, art, stories, people, and the constant urge to create something of my own.
It reminds me of all the things I keep saying I want to do, but haven’t quite found the patience, discipline or courage to begin.
And somehow, sitting there makes them feel possible again.
Maybe I could write that thing. Make that film. Tell that story. Maybe I could actually become the person I’ve been imagining.
For a few hours, i remember that i can.
I don’t go to Cubbon Park very often. Maybe once every few months. But almost every time, I leave feeling a little more in touch with myself.
Maybe that’s what a reset really is.
Not becoming a different person. Not escaping your life.
Just stepping away from the noise long enough to hear yourself again.
And maybe that’s why I keep coming back.
Not because Cubbon Park changes.
But because, somehow, every time I leave, I do.
