It is a few minutes past mid-day at Cubbon Park, where the 300-acre green space provides respite from the sun’s oppressive heat, offering shade and relief to its occupants. Next to a sprawling banyan tree within the park, a scattered group of over 300 people are seated on towels and mats. Most of them have a book opened in their hands. A few others chat with closed books next to them. One of them sketches a tree. The vibe is tranquil. The scenery is serene. It is similar to Georges Seurat’s pointillist masterpiece, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, which portrays a leisurely scene in 19th-century Paris. The members of Cubbon Reads have been meeting this way every Saturday since the beginning of this year.
Last December, Shruti Sah and Harsh Snehanshu began cycling to Cubbon Park on Saturdays. They would cycle there, spend some time at the park, and return. Once when they posted photos of them reading there on Instagram, a few of their friends asked if they could join them. So, they made a page called Cubbon Reads and invited people. Six of them turned up for the first meetup. It reduced to five in the next week. In the third week, only one of them turned up. Shruti and Harsh wondered if they should stop this.
“We decided to go on, however, even if it is just the two of us,” says Harsh. “But more people started joining through Instagram and by seeing us read at Cubbon Park.”
