Rich repository of State’s botanical treasures

By M.A. Siraj

Lalbagh is to Bengaluru what Kew Royal Botanical Garden is to London. Its centrality to the city’s history and geography lends it an iconic status. It is for the first time that the garden, its origin and evolution, its botanical treasures and visual pleasures have been documented as a book.

The Bangalore Environment Trust has brought out the history of the garden in a comprehensive volume titled Lalbagh : Sultans’ Garden to Public Park authored by Vijay R. Thiruvady, the man who has conducted hundreds of visitors on Green Heritage Walks around the city’s famed gardens on weekends for the last 15 years. Thiruvady is a botanist by choice, but was trained as an architect. It took him five years to gather material from a variety of sources, including tomes on city’s history and archives of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew and Edinburgh.

The 240-page book provides life sketches of legendary botanists —William New, Adamson Black, John Cameron, G. H. Krumbiegel, H. C. Javaraya and M. H. Marigowda — trained at the Kew who contributed to Lal Bagh’s development as a conservatory and epicenter of horticultural research, lending the state of Karnataka a rare edge in the green space.

The book carries an introduction from the founder of Bangalore Walks, Arun Pai. Also included between the covers are 130 illustrations from artist Govindoo, illustrator Cheluviah Raju and an unnamed ‘Maratta’ painter.

Thiruvady uncovers precious nuggets of information from layers of history. Bengaluru founder Kempegowda selected the 3.5 billion-year old “prodigious rocky outburst” to raise one of the four towers that act as signposts of Bengaluru’s history. The rock was declared a National Geological Monument in 1975. Few know that megalithic burial chambers were excavated within the fenced area of Lalbagh in 1935 thereby further deepening the antiquity to the city’s location. Several of the artefacts were removed and preserved at the city’s Government Museum.

The original garden was laid out by Kempegowda in 1537 on a 34-acre plot and was called Huvina Thotta (garden of flowers). His son further developed it and named it Kemputhotta (the red garden) in 1569. It was basically intended to grow flowers for temple offerings.

The area passed under the control of Hyder Ali as a jagir conferred by Mysore’s Wodeyar rulers in 1728. His son Tipu Sultan further added a rose and cypress garden in 1760 on a charbagh pattern with its rectangular area spliced into four quadrants. His association with the Jacobin Club enabled him to import seeds and plants from Mauritius and France. The French also presented a “liberty tree” to the garden. It was during this era that chakotha or pomelo trees were brought from Thailand and its horticulture was encouraged in Mysore.

The two rulers brought members of the Thigala community from areas in present Tamil Nadu who settled around tanks in Bengaluru and helped the city to emerge as the Garden City.

Following Tipu’s martyrdom in the fourth Anglo-Mysore war in 1799, Lalbagh till then known as the Sultans’ Garden came under the East India company. Between 1857 and 1973 it witnessed gradual conversion into a conservatory and botanical research lab as its destiny was steered by a series of expert horticulturists trained at the Kew, two of them being Indians. It was in 1856 that it acquired its present name, Lalbagh.

The book chronicles the substantial contributions of these superintendents of the Lalbagh. Flower shows commenced in 1857 and later got aligned with Republic Day and Independence Day celebrations. The bandstand came up a decade later. The majestic Glass House was constructed in 1889 replicating several features of the Crystal Palace exhibition hall of Hyde Park, London.

Lalbagh became a favorite haunt for foreign visitors. The author records: “Lalbagh was frequented by the Europeans in Bangalore in large numbers. In one year alone, between 1863 and 1864, 12,183 carriages and 6,003 equestrians entered the park. Indians also visited the park in large numbers on festival days.” (p. 117)

Studded with an enormous amount of facts, maps, diagrams, charts, photographs and photos of correspondence between superintendents of Lalbagh Bagh and the Royal Botanical Gardens as well as important functionaries of the British government, the book is a comprehensive history of Lalbagh.

Rare photographs sourced from various libraries, archives and descendants of the late superintendents of Lal Bagh enhance the value of the book.