Lalbagh Flower Show opens today with Valmiki tribute

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: A 15-foot-high anthill model, a tenfoot- tall statue of Maharishi Valmiki and a floral recreation of his Ashram in Chitwan, Nepal are some of the several features of the Republic Day Special Flower Show, which is set to start on Thursday at Lalbagh Botanical Garden. Maharishi Valmiki had written the first version of the epic, Ramayana. The flower show will celebrate his contributions to Indian mythology and the gift in the form of an epic.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will open the event; his cabinet colleagues like Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, Horticulture Minister S S Mallikarjun and Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy will be present. The famed Glass House, as always, will steal the limelight at the show. More than 1.75 lakh special flower and leafy plants including exotic orchids like Pelanapsis Dendrobium and Catnelia will be put up near the central area of the Glass House. A “Hutta” meaning an anthill in Kannada, will be erected in the center of the Glass House to honor Valmiki's penance. A 15-foot high model of the anthill has been put up on a 10-foot-high plinth, covered with flowers weighing more than 600 kilograms. As many as 60 workers laboured across five days to create this, sources said.

In front of the anthill will be a six-foot statue of Valmiki in the pose he assumed chanting 'Ramanama.' Balakrishna HT, Deputy Director of the Horticulture Department at Lalbagh, noted that the floral model of Valmiki’s Ashram in Chitwan District in Nepal will be another point of attraction for visitors. The flower show is expected to draw at least 8 lakh visitors, according to Balakrishna. “The weekend and Republic Day falling on a Sunday means that we may have bigger numbers than last year,” he added.

The 3D artwork of Panchavati, artefacts of post- Valmiki poets, a garden model of a Kuteera, and artifacts of Hanuman and Jatayu, 10 attractive flower pyramids, a paludarium which merges elements of an aquarium with terrestrial plant cultivation and an exhibition of palm scripts of the Ramayana will be other attraction around the Glass House.