First Garden of the Republic

'The Indian Grey Hornbills become unusually vocal too, flying from tree to tree to check out cavities for nesting, even trying to evict parakeets from the spots that they like! In response, the parakeets duck inside in the cavities, emerging only after the encroaching hornbills have left. The latter are occsionally seen engaging in territorial fights with other hornbills, fighting beak to beak. Pairs of the Black-rumped Flameback can also be seen checking out holes on tree trunks which they can hollow out and deepen for their nests,' writes Ghazala Shahabuddin in First Garden of The Republic, Nature in the President's Estate, Rashtrapati Bhavan. A happening in a New Delhi spring. Me read the lines many times over; whiled over the book about a more than 100 year old garden in New Delhi. Lord Hardinge, viceroy of India, in 1912 rode up the slope of Raisina Hill to locate the Government House. The final site was the brow of Raisina Hill. 'A 330-acre Estate with a house that covered five acres, 15 acre of ornamental gardens with lush greenery and lavish water fountains: in a country where most people worked their tiny fields to the utmost to coax out a living, a pleasure garden was the ultimate form of conspicuous consumption. Such profligacy, and at such spectacular scale, proclaimed the pre-eminence of British Raj over its dominion and subjects,' says Amita Baviskar. December 31, 2016, we should Thank Lord Hardinge for the Mughal gardens, the spacious green patch; grateful to W.R. Munroe, William Mustoe and Edwin Lutyens. In 2016, city planners have been scraping the green off old cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and New Delhi; ponds, trees, gardens, walks, open spaces do not inform their plans. The Estate has a manicured look with golf grounds and sore car parks .....less draped with forests ..., suggest the writers. Yes, the golf grounds and football field and car parks should go but for that we need a President with green paints. The book (except for the pix of Mr. Pranab Mukherjee) with color pics is me read of 2016. For the Gardens to live another 100 years, gardeners are a must; the Gardens were tapped and touched and tampered by families of gardeners over years; a cash crunch seems to have done away with the bond; the Gardens are today tended more by contract workers with less feel for the earth the Gardens. This should go immediately; hands should be retained, made permanent, for knowhow to flow and be stored; the Gardens need love in plenty and gardeners alone can offer. Sadly Amita Baviskar does not dwell on the lives of the gardeners, picking a family for mention. The Gardens need to be more wild; a team of old gardeners should guide the job as they are experts; and their suggestions should be binding; Presidents will come and go and we have not had a green thumb President. Will it happen? Will the Gardens turn a flower pot in times when green is much disliked? Pray, not. Gardens and gardeners: A Happy 2017.