Beautiful Lalbagh Botanical Garden

Early January 2017, returning on our way to Hyderabad, we decided to explore Bengaluru before boarding the flight.

We hired a taxi from Bellur, the birth place of Guruji B.K.S. Iyengar in Kollar district of Karnataka. We explored quite a few places in Bengaluru but Lalbagh stood out to be a memorable experience for us.

Lalbagh is a mammoth 240 acre Botanical Garden located in the south of Bengaluru. The park has four gates and the southern gate on the lalbagh road is considered to be the main gate. 

These beautiful flowers welcome you the moment you enter the park.

Within few minutes of observation, I sensed that Lalbagh is certainly not established by current administrators.. Modern administrators can't think of this big without any profit. So, I thought it was probably established by the Britishers during their rule in India. There was a little tussle in my mind all over the journey to Hyderabad. The name Lalbagh doesn't sound British and then again I felt when Bangalore can become Bengaluru why can't Lalbagh?

On reaching home I approached the God of information called Google. In Indian mythology there is a famous character of Narada who was then considered as God of information. He used to travel different planets seeking the information. 330 million Hindu Gods and Goddesses and even demons used to rely on his information. Google is the modern day 'Narada' for Humans and I don't know may be even to Gods if they can read multiple languages spoken on Earth.

So this is an abstract of what I learned from Google.

Lal bagh means the red garden. It was originally commissioned by the Sultan of Mysore, Hyder Ali in 1760 and his son Tipu Sultan completed it later. Hyder Ali laid out these famous botanical gardens and his son Tipu added horticulture wealth to them by importing trees and plants from several countries. It is now under the aegis of the Director of Horticulture, Karnataka.

The park has some rare species of plants bought from Persia, Afghanistan and Iran. The most meticulous part of this garden's construction is perhaps its sophisticated watering system which irrigates over 1000 species of flora including trees that are over 100 years old. The garden itself is the medley of lawns, rock formation, flowerbeds, lotus pools and fountains.

After Bellur, I came across some of these beautiful lotuses in Lalbagh.

It is a rare thing to find lotuses in Metro cities. Lucky Bengalorians! And off course lucky us.

Awe-sum! Isn't it?

Lalbagh is a home for different birds and species. When the metro cities are losing all kinds of birds due to radiation of cell towers, seeing these many unknown birds was a sheer delight.

My friends missed me as I was busy with these beauties.

It's so wonderful. Where do we get a chance to see such things in metro cities? Even sparrows are a rare sight in Hyderabad.

A rare sight of Pigeon and Squirrel having their meals together. Do you get a chance to see this in Hyderabad?

I personally love this shot. You know how quick is squirrel. Glad I clicked it in motion.

Squirrels are often scared of humans. They run the moment they hear the footsteps of humans. There was no fear in this squirrel.

It was really close in a catch-able distance from me. Don't you think it is happily posing?

There is a pigeon house in the gardens specially built for pigeons.

Pigeons resting in their beautifully built house.

Different variety of Eagles were seen in the Garden. This Golden Eagle caught my attention resting on the tree top.

It is now getting ready to take off. In a moment my sight distracted and it took off. I learned few lessons in photography here. My photography skills in capturing quick and fast moving objects was exposed.

A crow relaxing on a bambo tree.

There are some really friendly monkeys in Lalbagh. This is one of the handsome monkeys I have seen.

This is the famous monkey man in Lalbagh. He hails from the state of Andhra Pradesh. For the last 20 years he has been coming to the park every day. He developed a sort of bonding with these monkeys here.

He is a very lovely and funny man. He helps the visitors interact with monkeys safely.

He invited Tulsi to offer something to the monkey going close to her. Initially, we thought he is trying to Thug money by doing some tricks. Later we realized he is a good gentleman helping visitors to interact with monkeys and have fun.

Tulsi offered peanuts to this monkey. Tulsi was damn scared in the beginning and was furious on us for sending her to offer food to the monkeys. But once the monkey received her with warmth she began to enjoy.

Now she is not gonna leave her.

She finally climbed her back and Tulsi ran screaming and laughing.

We paid Rs.10 to that man for entertaining us. He is making three things happen. First, he is helping  the monkeys to earn their food. Unlike other monkeys these monkeys in Lalbagh don't grab things off your hands. Secondly, he is helping in building an understanding between the monkeys and humans and thirdly he is making his livelihood. We moved further as the monkey found her friend now.

There are vast varieties of huge trees that are over 100 years old. A tree caught my special interest as it is vast in size and has some special kind of seeds all over.

You can see the size of the trunk. It looks different from every side you see.

It had a bunch of these fruits or flowers all over.

A close up shot of the seeds.

One more ancient tree.

A tall towering tree reaching sky.

Natural architecture of twin towers.

A beautiful tree with flowers dominating the leaves.

This fossil is one of the highlights of lalbagh. It is believed to be 20 million year old fossil.

Prashant, Sridhar, Viru and Rajaram having some break.

Another highlight of this garden are the vast variety of flowers.

It is said that the best time to visit Lalbagh is during Republic and Independence days of India which are on 26th of January and 15th of August every year.

A vast variety of flowers are at display in a flower show during these two days.

I captured few of these beautiful flowers in Lalbagh.

 

From Lalbagh we visited a very popular restaurant called Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (MTR) for a wonderful lunch. It is famous for its tiffins and meals with huge waiting list at any time. Visit when you have patience and time to enjoy the delicacies of Karnatatka.

We then visited yet another popular park in Bengaluru, the Cubbon Park established by the Britishers. It is also a beautiful, wild park with giant, old trees.

From Cubbon Park, we visited the High Court of Karnataka and the Legislative Assembly before flying back to Hyderabad.

I hope you like this blog. Keep watching the space for more updates. Thank you.