Bangalore · Cubbon Park to the temple

We began quietly, under the old trees. Twelve or so of us, in white, with two small murtis, Vitthal and Rukmini, garlanded that morning at home. We had not sent out an invitation. We had only agreed to walk.

The pace was slower than Bangalore's. At first that made us self-conscious; the city does not usually slow for anyone. But after a few minutes the singing settled us, and the slowness began to feel like the point.

What the street did

We had expected to be ignored, and were prepared for it. Instead something else happened, at almost every intersection.

A young woman on a scooter stopped and folded her hands while the light was still green.

An auto-rickshaw driver pulled to the side of the road, stepped out of his vehicle, and bowed, just once, deeply, before getting back in.

A man in office clothes saw us from across the street and crossed three lanes of traffic, on foot, between moving cars, to touch the edge of the wooden platform and then walk away without saying a word.

A shopkeeper came out of his shop holding a child, and lifted the child's small hand in namaste.

A family on the footpath, walking the other direction, all stopped together as if they had practised.

We had not asked for any of this. None of it was performed for us; it was performed for God. We were only walking. The strangers were the ones who remembered.

What I understood

The world is not as far from God as we sometimes fear.

The city is busy, but busyness is not refusal. It is forgetting. And forgetting, it turns out, wants very little to lift again: a garlanded form on the road, a song repeated softly, a small group walking gently.

I had thought of the walking as something we were doing for devotion. On this walk, I understood that the walking is also a quiet gift to the street. The street was more ready to receive it than I had expected.

What next

We will walk again next week, and the week after. Other cities have already asked. I will not rush this. The form is simple enough that it can grow on its own, if we stay out of its way.

Jai Shri Ram. Jai Vitthal. Jai Rukmini.