“Flâneuring” here, there and everywhere: my urban walks

 

"Flâneur", I read a few days ago, is a French word for a person who walks the streets looking for fun, a loafer or ”saunterer”. A kinder use of the word refers to a dawdling observer, a person walking with no particular destination in mind other than noticing little details along the way. Well, what do you know? ‘Flâneuring’ is what I apparently have been doing for several years – only I didn’t know that’s a thing.

In the last two decades or more I have walked in several cities across the world. Walking has become a way for me to explore, get to know a new place, discover new beauty or rediscover forgotten joys. However, from the time I stopped working for a living, my work-travels to exciting locations have stopped. Looking back, my city-walks then were actually more typically flâneuring in approach. My walks have progressively become more regular, more brisk, more enthusiastic –as more years got added to my age! Now there’s a fitness quotient mixed in, which explains the brisk pace and added zest.

Some years back I read a marvelous book on Bangalore called “Nature in the City” by ecologist-author Harini Nagendra. Connecting with nature in cities as I walk has since become an uplifting part of my urban wanderings. A young naturalist introduced me to Google Lens which I use to identify - not always successfully - trees, plants or flowers that I come across. Old faithful Google Maps helps in my dogged attempts to master topographies. And, of course there’s my phone camera to click and store away little moments of joy.

 Sitting at my son’s desk in Edmonton as I write this, the city’s flat prairie landscape is uppermost in my mind. Edmonton, where I have spent several summers, is the capital of Alberta province in Canada. A beautifully planned city - rows of elegant homes with gardens, broad tree-lined sidewalks, parks with grassy knolls and wild flowers, a lone dandelion, water bodies where ducks swim lazily - there is beauty waiting for me at every turn. Bursts of colour delight me every time I see beautiful flowers in gardens. 

Now familiar with the vegetation here I feel a thrill every time I think I have identified one more tree - hardy Elms with vase-shaped canopies, Aspens whose leaves tremble and whisper in the breeze as I pass (aptly also called ‘quaking aspen’), Mountain and other Ash, Willow and of course Maple trees. Cherry, Plum, Apple trees tempt with low hanging fruit.

I walk past a summer pop-up dog park where dogs are running around off-leash, madly joyful! I stop to exchange greetings with a couple of dog owners while their dogs come running to put their curious faces on the fence to take a sniff. A bunch of chirping sparrows fly out dramatically from a tree only to go sit on another tree nearby. I had thought the magpie’s loud harsh chatter was to warn companions of my approach. Turns out these birds could actually be “scolding” me for intruding their space    Sorry rude bird! 

Keeping me away from the road and traffic are quiet walking trails (one of the things I absolutely love in Edmonton) that meander between neighbourhoods. I often stop to chat with friendly kids and their families. 

 

Walking is faster than you’d think, but distances here can be deceptive. The clear flat terrain persuades me to set a goal to reach a building or landmark which is actually further away than I had estimated. Several times I have ended up walking longer than I had planned to –no complaints though for its still beautiful! Edmonton is a walker’s dream come true.

 

We spend a good slice of the year also at our daughter’s US home in Redmond, near Seattle. Tall Douglas Firs, Western Red Cedars, large Oaks with dense foliage, Japanese maple, London Planetrees and more, stand on hilly landscape providing green cover along pavements I walk on.

Bunches of Hydrangea form strikingly 

blue clusters in home gardens. Huge 

fragrant pale-coloured lilies stand in 

mud pots swaying gently, gorgeously. 

I feel like a queen walking on a sidewalk breathing in the subtle scent of wild roses that line my path. 

Around August-September thorny black berry plants are growing aggressively all over the town – an invasive growth the city struggles with. Plucking a ripe berry that feels sweet in my mouth gives me a sense of triumph! 

During the Fall months spectacular colours of trees and shrubs add a breathtaking dimension to the beauty of my walking paths. 

Do crows here caw one by one? It sounds that way to me! Is the loud Steller’s Jay (always thought they were Blue Jays) related to the noisy Canadian Magpie? Robins and smaller birds flit about from tree to tree. Sometimes I stop to watch one of them walk across a street. I can never walk past a Little Free Library (here and in Edmonton) without stopping to open the little door to browse and borrow. I just so love these cute markers of trusting free-spirited bookworms. 

 

A high point of my walks this summer has been walking to Marymoor Park along the Sammamish River trail, an unbelievably serene path right through Redmond town even passing under the expressway. Bikers, joggers, other walkers greet with friendly waves as we pass each other. 

Neighbourhood walks with my little grandsons end up being flâneuring by default! We dawdle more than we walk making several stops to watch bees hovering over lavenders, bunnies that try to hide from us or tiny bugs on leaves. Sometimes we stop to pat Sparky a friendly dog we know, watch sprinklers jet out water on lawns or squat on the edge of a sidewalk to peer into a roadside drain to see water flowing, and on occasion have even taken a “pedestrian” U-turn to chase after garbage trucks!  

 An abiding image in my mind of my North American walks is of courteous motorists who stop and wait patiently for me to cross the road. I mouth a ‘thank you’ as we exchange a smile and a wave.

 Well before the onset of winter my husband and I fly to India, to Bangalore where we are based. It takes a couple of days to get over the feeling of having landed on another planet. After that I easily slip back into my life here which includes going on my walks. My daily walks are almost always within the relative calm of our apartment complex. The grounds still have old trees – a large peepal surrounded by a “katte” (raised platform), teak, jackfruit, neem, ‘palash’ (flame of the forest) – trees that have been here before our apartment buildings came up. The call of Koels fills the air in the hot summer months. Barbets call incessantly. Sunbirds flutter in and out of trees and bushes so quickly I can barely manage a glimpse. Mynas hop about, butterflies hover and if I’m lucky I see Bulbuls. A small patch of ‘urban forest’ next to our apartment complex has miraculously survived the city’s onslaught of development. This green cover houses Raintrees, Copper Pods, Gulmohars, Eucalyptus and a large Banyan tree. I only walk along the border on our side of the wall as stray dogs pose a risk if you venture into these woods.

 It is when I get out into the city’s streets (and indeed other cities I visit in India) that the walks become exuberant, vivid, sometimes overwhelming but always fascinating! Of course, its crowded and of course the cacophony of traffic is crazy but none of that dampens the spirit and enterprise on the streets where my husband and I often ‘take a walk’. 

It could be Malleshwaram or Jayanagar or Basavanagudi in Bangalore or Mylapore in Chennai - everywhere we dodge past pedestrians and shoppers who flock around street vendors (men and women –high work-force participation of women here) to buy the innumerable items being offered on sale - dupattas, bindis, steel utensils, apparel, flowers, bangles and more. No place to put your foot on this footpath! And to think that’s a term used in India. Loud voices all around are trying to strike good bargains. Do vendors earn enough to meet their families’ needs and aspirations? 

We go past carts laden with vegetables, fruits, healthy "soppu" (greens), tender coconuts. 

Unexpectedly I see a beautiful work of art around a tree amidst all the chaos. And a beautiful Kolam in front of a gate.

Art in the city streets

Lush ‘honge mara' (Indian beech) and other large trees line a street in Jayanagar where I'm taking a stroll-walk......................

.....................while my husband gets his dental work done at the charming heritage property that is the clinic. A large tree has coiled wire on its thick branches, presumably connecting something somewhere.

Dental clinic 

Quaint boards pop up promoting products like “Tandoori Chai” or services of a matrimonial agency that probably promises couples to back-up their marriage wows on “cloud nine”! There’s a ‘By2Coffee’ café – a uniquely Bangalore concept that ‘officially’ allows customers to split and share their coffee sometimes even  allowing 1by3!                                                                                                                                                                                           Our walk down Bull Temple Street during the "Kadlekai parishe” (annual festival of groundnut harvest) is enthralling. Groundnut farmers (again men and women) from across South India spread out their harvest on – where else? -  the footpath, with QR code sheets for phone payments stuck into the groundnuts. We stop to chat with several of them. 

 As we come on to the broader main road, we see passengers of a town bus literally lending a hand, both hands in fact, to push the bus and get it moving. Our walks in urban India rarely come without the unpredictable. But it’s the people here, always the people who win our hearts.....

I’m often asked, “where do you like it better? India or US/Canada?” My honest answer every time – “When I’m in India I love being in India and when I’m in US or Canada I love being there”. In today’s connected globe, why choose one? When you can pick from the best of all worlds.......