In our heads, it was the perfect place, like out-of-a-book perfect. I never use the word 'pristine' on principle, but in my head, that 's what Bugle Rock was. A beautiful, pristine, perfect place.
When Surya and I make a plan, it never goes smoothly. It's not supposed to, and we both accept that. After a failed attempt last July, we decided to give it another shot. This time, it would be well planned and well executed. We would prepare and plan the last detail so that nothing could go wrong and discourage us from visiting Bugle Rock - a place we didn't know existed till six months ago when we were lazing around in between naps and decided to explore our city.
The first bus we got on from the bus stop near my house was where we had the first argument - about whether it was the optimal bus route to take to get to our destination. It probably wasn't, strike one against me for being too hasty. But we decided to conserve our energy for later, and Surya showed me her impressive bag - it had one bottle of water, one orange, a packet of tissues, and one bar of Cadbury Bournville (cranberry flavour), but no sanitizer. We spent about half an hour at the main bus station looking for our bus, and ate a couple of samosas while we were looking. Surya insisted on a badam milk shake, and my suspicion that she was having it just because it was available was confirmed when she said, "I didn't really want that",
Strike two against me because the bus was right in front of us, but I read the route number wrong. This was a risky part, because our energy levels were fluctuating dangerously. But we got on the bus and Surya peeled the orange which she'd thoughtfully packed, and we spat the seeds out of the window when no one was watching.
We got off outside a McDonald's somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and it seemed like we were on the right track, at least according to Surya's hand-drawn map. We could feel it in our bones that we were very close. but funnily no one around knew where Bugle Rock was. The McDonald's woman mislead us, but we forgave her because I no longer had to pee and Surya had got her mid-morning chicken fix. So mislead, we walked down a road that's different, like the whole area was different, from the part of the city that we're used to. Finally, FINALLY, we reached a park that looked like it could contain Bugle Rock. There was a terribly painted lion on the wall opposite it, and I took a picture as Surya said, "Well, if this isn't Bugle Rock, then I don't know who I am!" This is the catchphrase of the entire trip, in my head. It was a nice enough park, but looked too empty to be one of Bangalore's tourist destinations. We had the good sense to do something that we should have done forty minutes previously - we checked Google Maps, according to which the Bugle Rock park was a two kilometers from us. We walked it, and we could feel that we were getting closer.
There were CPI(M) posters hung from a building, and we took it as a sign from the universe that we were on the right path (Surya shares a long and confused relationship with the CPI(M) ). The park was something else. Darkened because of the canopy above, it was well maintained. The rock itself was just okay, nothing spectacular, but we pretended that it was great. We got laughed at, as we do every time we are seen together in public, but as always, we took it for flattery and went our way. Sitting on a bench, we shared the Bournville (I'd been waiting patiently for this ever since I saw it in Surya's bag). We were interrupted twice, once by some woman who said we'd get wisdom and become a doctor/engineer if we donated money towards some god. We told her we didn't want to do anything with our lives, and she seemed more shocked by this than angry that we weren't giving her money. A woman from McDonald's (these guys are everywhere) tried to sell us coupons, but we told her that we had just eaten there (we got a handshake for that) and that we were trying to watch our weight.
After Bugle, we went to Shivajinagar and got kababs. The kabab guy asked Surya why she hadn't come in such a long time.
I don't think I'll ever go to Bugle Rock again. The fact that both Surya and I placed so much hope and so many expectations on that park made the unspectacular park something else. It really wasn't about the destination, it was the long and winding journey, the whole day.
