Bangalore - The One at the Botanical Gardens

In 2005, my work sent me to Bangalore in India, to provide training to our colleagues. While there I wrote a series of stories about my experiences and about an expat living in India. This is one of them.

The One at the Botanical Gardens

It’s Sunday the 1st of May and today I chose to explore the Botanical Gardens.

Sunday is not normally my day for house keeping, but I had to spend yesterday in the office and my schedule had been thrown out a tad. Being the resilient sole that I am, I finished crying well before 10 o’clock, which is when the shops open, so I could do my grocery shopping. Then I popped across the road to get my lunch at the reasonably fast food place that I have learned have at least one dish that I am able to eat. It is called “Curd Rice” and is a strange mixture of boiled rice, yoghurt, onions, spices, sometimes nuts and any combination of other things that they think of on the day. A meal of this, which is really quite tasty, is Rs10, or 30c Aussie.

I was put on to this chain of restaurants by one of the ladies at work. She was asking about my food problems and seemed to understand. All of the people at work try very hard to help if they think there might be a problem, so she put her mind to it. The answer was the chain of restaurants called “Sri Krishna Sagar”. They are everywhere and are high enough quality that cleanliness is not a problem. They also sell the Curd Rice, which is a dish I discovered through the lunch they put on at work. And so far, both at work and in the restaurants, it is safe for me to eat.

“Sri Krishna Sagar” roughly translates to “Mr. Krishna Restaurant”.

After I had eaten, I grabbed one of the Autos that was waiting out the front and told him I wanted to go to “the Botanical Gardens”. He looked at me blank faced so I said it again, this time slowly, clearly and enunciating each word as carefully as possible. Again zero comprehension. I told him I would show him where and he accepted this. So off we went.

As we passed various alternative routes, he was obviously thinking about what I had said. Suddenly he turned around and said “LalBarg”. I told him “No. I will show you where” and we proceeded for another few minutes. When I told him to pull over I saw him sigh. I didn’t know why until after I had paid him, with a small tip, and had turned around to enter the gardens. There on the sign was the name “LalBarg”. This is one of the frustrations faced by expats in many parts of the world. It was the same in Riyadh when we were there. Places can have multiple names, one for the locals and one for the English speakers. Also on the sign was the name “Bangalore Botanical Gardens”, so we were both correct but speaking different languages. He knew the gardens as “LalBarg” and I knew them as “The Botanical Gardens”. The Tower of Babel was a curse on humanity.

The entrance fee for the gardens is Rs5, thankfully for all who enter, with no differentiation between locals and visitors. No doubt there is a family fee, or at least no fee for children, for I discovered that the gardens are a real draw card for young families. And quite rightly so.

As I walked up the entry road, I was immediately surprised by the feeling of peace that I found. The entry road was only 100m long, but in that distance the outside world was all but left behind. It turns out that I had used a minor side entrance, with the main entrance coming off another road some distance away. So my first impression was not overly high. Sure it was peaceful, but what was there to see?

I set off in explore mode. I started following all of the left-leaning pathways, seeing where they would take me. A tip for anyone who is interested; if you want to find your way out of a maze, put one shoulder to the wall as soon as you walk in and keep walking. Eventually you will walk out of the maze. This is what I did today. All around me was evidence of the British. The buildings servicing the gardens were leftovers from the British era, the well-edged pathways I can only surmise were leftovers. Many of the statues were obviously from the Brits.

The path took me up a hill to one of the important landmarks in Bangalore. Now, to an outsider this landmark is a bit ho-hum. It takes on more significance when the history is added. It is called the Tower of Kempe Gowda. The ho-hum comes from the fact that it is not very big or impressive. But the history is interesting. About 400 years ago, a royal person from nearby Mysore came to Bangalore and laid claim to it. He got four men on camels or cows or donkeys or something, and told them to ride all day and stop when the sun went down. At the point that each of them stopped he proclaimed that this was the edge of his new city and had workers erect a tower. Kempe Gowda is one of the four towers, and is today only a third of the way from the city centre to the edge of the city. In terms of Melbourne, it is in Oakleigh.

The pathway was now looking a bit worse-for-wear, having lost all semblance of being formed. It was now a track. But I kept following it, sticking to my plan to keep my left shoulder to the wall. Again it paid off as I crested a hill and saw a rather beautiful lake down the other side of the hill. Here’s an interesting tid-bit from Bangalore. Smallish lakes are often called “tanks”. Don’t ask me why.

There was a well-formed path making its way around the lake. I ambled slowly along the path, enjoying the view of the lake and the beautiful, tropical trees that surrounded it. Bangalore is within the tropics; it is only its height of 1000m above sea level that keeps it from being exceedingly hot. But it supports many of the tropical species of plants that are to be found in Brisbane, such as Poinciana, Frangipani and many, many more. And this is the time of year when they are all in flower.

I learned later that this path was at the extreme back of the gardens, so there were not many people walking. Those who were, were mainly young couples (not holding hands) and groups of young men, many of whom were holding hands. I was attracting a little bit of attention, but nothing over-the-top.

There was lot’s of bird life on the lake. I don’t know much about birds, but there were lots of them. I do know that there were cormorants, you know, the black ones that duck under water. The vegetation on the side of the path was very healthy and this was refreshing after spending the past weeks in Bangalore streets. Plus, I could hear the traffic on the road nearby, but a solid wall of stone blocks kept the outside world at a comfortable distance.

As I ambled along, I sensed one group of young fellows were talking about me. I sat for a rest and a drink of water, and when I got going again one of the young fellows came up to me and introduced himself. He was endowed with a very healthy sense of self-confidence, so prudence caused me to stop and give him the time of day. We chatted briefly about my name, where I was from, where he was from (another state of India I gather) and then what the names of all of his friends were. We all shook hands and parted company. I had the distinct feeling that he had just used me to show off to his friends that he could speak good English and could engage the foreigner, me, in conversation. That was OK. We all had a good time and no harm was done.

As I walked further along this path, I was surprised by the number of couples who were huddled in the shade of the trees, heads together enjoying each other’s secrets. It seemed that every pool of shade had a young couple contained within. I continued along the path, wondering why the gardens themselves have that not-quite-cared-for-enough look that is so common in Bangalore. The grass is just a little too long. There are always unfinished earthworks where drainage or a sprinkler system is being installed or fixed. The edge of the pathway needs repair or a new tree desperately needs some water. And then I realized that I was looking at the gardens with the eyes of a Melbournian; one who enjoys walking through the gardens of Melbourne as often as possible. We are very lucky in Melbourne, so I should not measure Bangalore’s gardens using that comparison.

As I ambled along I could hear a whistle blowing. I thought it strange in a park like this, but didn’t think anything more of it. The gardens were slowly getting a more looked after feel, with the pathways having less holes and the trees and shrubs having a more looked after appearance. I ambled past what has to be the largest tree I have ever seen. I think it was a fig of some sort, similar to a Morton Bay Fig. It was seriously huge, with the trunk being maybe 20m around and the root base spreading out for 10m away from the trunk. The branches reached out at least 30m, maybe as far as 40m.

While skirting past the tree, I could see that there were three separate groups of people making use of its root system. This provided perfect hollows for the families to set themselves up for an afternoon in the park, which they had done. And the children were having a great time climbing all over the roots.

Still I could hear those whistles. What did they mean?

I continued walking and went past another entrance, this one more substantial then the one I had used. Many people were entering and leaving the park as I crossed over the entrance road and continued on the other side. Now there was a network of formed pathways, so I chose one of the smaller ones and continued along. There were people from every walk of life in the park. I’ve already mentioned all of the families that were there, but there were also young men, young ladies, middle aged people, young, old, rich, poor. It was great to see so many people enjoying the beauties of this park.

Eventually I came to the main entrance. This was where all of the signs were explaining about the park and its history. I discovered that the park has been here in one form or another for about 250 years. It started as a 70 acre garden, then grew over the last hundred years to being now over 200 acres. Unfortunately, the final 100 acres has not been fully brought up to the standard of the original, as it was incorporated only in the 1950’s. India has had other pressing issues in that time.

One of the drawcards for the park is the, supposedly, world famous “Glass House”. This was apparently a gift from the Prince of Wales a hundred years ago, or something like that. It is quite attractive and well looked after. They could do so much more with it if they had the money. In Melbourne this glass house would become a magnificent restaurant or place to show flowers or one of many other uses. But in Bangalore they maintain the glass house purely for interest sake, and the fact that it is considered a tourist attraction. It is an interesting structure and worthy of a visit if already in the park.

I ventured onto a bench in the shade of some huge trees and on the edge of one of the expansive lawns. There was a sign nearby which stated quite clearly “No playing games in this park”. I thought that was odd as there were so many families here, many of them with badminton rackets and shuttle cocks, others with a tennis ball. There were a group of young fellows throwing a tennis ball back and forth to each other. Suddenly, one of the roving guards on his bicycle stopped peddling up the pathway and started blowing his whistle frantically. The guards also carry the long sticks that you may have seen on the news from time to time. On the news they are usually knocking someone of the back of the legs with them.

Well, here’s this guard blowing his whistle. He was off his bike by now and strolling purposefully across the lawn. He kept blowing his whistle as he approached the young fellows throwing the ball. When he finished telling them to stop “playing”, he strode purposefully over to the closest family. They had a bit of a discussion with him, then packed up their badminton rackets. Next came another family playing with badminton rackets. The guard went right around the lawn and made everybody stop enjoying themselves. What a shame.

I had by now circumnavigated the park, left shoulder to the wall, and it was time to leave. I decided that the walk would do me good, as I’m not getting enough exercise here, so I set off to walk home. Walking along the roads is always a challenge, as the driveways and curbs are often non-existent. So this was more like a mountain climb. The distance was approximately 5km, which took me an hour to cover, but I made it home safely. Now it was time to go and buy some tomatoes that I had forgotten to get in the morning.

After resting and having a drink at home, I took off to the nearby shop where they have reasonable fruit and vegies. What a mistake that was! I knew I was in for a fun time when I encountered a traffic jam getting into the car park. The traffic guards were trying to send cars left and right just to get them off the road, but there was nowhere for them to go. I squeezed past all of this and into the shop. All I wanted was a bag of tomatoes that I could have with my dinner. I had to struggle to get in the door.

I manoeuvred myself through the thronging mob to the fruit and vegie spot and grabbed a bag. I fought my way over to the tomatoes and selected some. I angled my way across to the weighing fellow to get them weighed and priced. Then I looked down the length of the shop to the cash registers and thought “Oh dear God!” The crowd was unbelievable.

I managed to get myself onto the end of a line for a cash register. Now standing in line in India is an art. You have to constantly reposition yourself in order to simply maintain your spot in the line. Other people come along and surreptitiously try to start a new branch line. This has to be nipped in the bud quick smart. If their lines gets bigger that your line, then their line becomes the de facto official line and you are suddenly on the outer. So swift but subtle manoeuvring is required. Then there are the pusher-inner-ers. They will stand there all big eyes and innocence while their other half inserts a hip at a strategic point. Then with subtle eye movements and quick reflexes they try to ooze their way ever so innocently into the line. You’ve got to be quick.

One old bloke and his old geezer wife managed to outsmart everybody. They simply didn’t care and reached over the lot of us and plonked their bags on the counter. You have to see this to fully appreciate the bravado. Without a care in the world, they pushed their stuff to the front and simply expected to get done next. They kept pushing the money into the face of the checkout guy, who made the rational decision to do their stuff and get rid of them. I would have too. The cheek of them!

Then there was the lady who thought she could out muscle the tourist …. me. The air-conditioning wasn’t working very well and I was in no mood for these shenanigans, so I said to her “I’ve got one bag of tomatoes and you are going to push in!” She looked at me as if she didn’t understand what I had said, so I said it again, this time just a teensy bit louder. “You are going to push in front of me when I’ve got one bag of tomatoes!!” I raised the bag of tomatoes so she, and everybody else, could clearly see them. Apparently her understanding of English was actually diminishing. So the fellow in front of me helped by speaking to her and indicating the spot in line behind me. She listened to him.

I thanked the guy in front of me. He shrugged his shoulders. That is India as I have seen it.