As a young boy, when I visited my relatives in Bengaluru in the 1970s and 80’s, in the evenings the family would go gallivanting around the Jayanagar Ragi Gudda area. There used to be acres and acres of sapota and guava orchards. In spite of the area being dominated by ragi, fields of fruits, vegetables and millet were aplenty and stretched to Madivala and Tavarekere on one side and Banashankari and Lalbagh Gate on the other.
We bought farm-fresh fruits and vegetables from farmers whose produce arrived in cane baskets. The long and winding walks from home in Jayanagar were not cumbersome, but a delight as the paths were tree-lined avenues.
I was born in Chennapatna, and most of my holidays during my childhood were spent in Bengaluru. After matriculation, I came to Bengaluru. I did my MSc. and Ph.D. in Horticulture at the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS). I have lived and breathed green, and continue to experience greenery of a different, botanical kind, especially after I joined the Lalbagh Botanical Garden’ Horticulture Department. I am happy to be linked to the greenery of Bengaluru.
Earlier when I visited the Bangalore University Campus on Mysore Road I would be apprehensive as in that forest of green, there were so few people.
When we visited Lalbagh Botanical Garden 25 years ago, there weren’t any entry tickets. Anyone could walk into the kingdom of green to relax or watch the department activities. We used to produce nearly 25,000 saplings a year and sell them to public. Everything sold like hot cakes and no stocks lasted. As the garden grew in variety and size, and we got more and more gardens under the horticulture department’s umbrella, we stopped selling saplings and used them all in our gardens.
Today Lalbagh is a 240-acre open space with 3,200 species. The lung space was declared a Government Botanical Garden in 1856. The Nurserymen’s Co-operative brings the saplings. Over the years Lalbagh and Cubbon Park in Bengaluru have played a vital role in nursing green sensibilities and helping public become fitness enthusiasts. Look at the rush of people coming for morning and evening walks and exercises.
From a 40-acre private garden belonging to Hyder Ali in 1760, today the garden is Bengaluru’s pride with locals, tourists, and botanical enthusiasts and researchers coming for scientific study of plants.
From the horticulture and Lalbagh’s point of view, as the Joint Director, I want parents to bring their children to show them the State’s asset in Lalbagh and Cubbon Park. The future generation should understand the fund of green we have. The Horticulture Department extends free entry to school children during all its flower shows.
Do you know that the Lalbagh Lake started off as a natural stream that collected water from the storm water drains from the nearby areas such as Siddapura, Jayanagar and Kanakanapalya? The scene today is the same, except that we have made a stone boundary for the mud bund with aerators and a waterfall.
Then there is Lalbagh Rock, a firm favourite of all photo enthusiasts and also from where you get a bird’s eye view of the city. There is no board explaining its significance. The special rock, which according to one theory is a natural earth genesis formation, has heritage value as the Geological Department has declared it a Monumental Rock. No building can come up within a radius of 200 feet around it.
The garden has a variety of flowering, ornamental, fruiting, foliage and aromatic plants, besides trees that are hundreds of years old. If ‘green’ is a movement, then children should be made to realise that the journey should begin in such places where the abundance of flora forms the initial lessons.
(As told to Ranjani Govind)
(This column features the city through the eyes of a prominent Bangalorean)