The green heritage walk

Be ready at 6.00 am on Saturday morning, I told Usha.

Are you kidnapping me? asked Usha sportingly.

Actually, Usha is worth kidnapping and the thought has crossed my mind (I’d exchange her for my mom any day. Okay I hope my mom’s not a closet reader of my blog!). But, no, I wasn’t.

I had heard about the Green Heritage Walk at Lalbagh from friends a few friends and I thought Usha being a frequent visitor to Lalbagh would enjoy it.

So, bright and early at 6.15 am on Saturday morning, we made our way to the base of the rock at the East gate of Lalbagh, joining Vijay Thiruvady and a group of 4 others who were already there.

Geetha got there about 10 minutes later and after a brief history from Vijay about the rock (apparently, it’s one of the world’s oldest rock formations), we started off on the walk.

I’ve been to Lalbagh quite a few times and even admired the beautiful tree cover, but never really knew either the names or the history behind these trees.

As Vijay (literally a walking talking encyclopaedia of tree related facts) enlightened us as we proceeded into the garden, there are over a 1000 plant and tree species in Lalbagh. And trees have been brought from far away and exotic places like Africa, South America and Persia, years and years ago. Both Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan who are the original founders of the garden were passionate about building the perfect garden and we have them to be thankful for the city’s biggest green stretch of 240 acres.

As we moved from tree to tree, Vijay kept us engrossed with loads of interesting tidbits and facts. I don’t think we’ll ever take the trees for granted the next time we walk around Lalbagh!

By the time the walk ended three hours later, we were a informed but very hungry bunch as we headed for a huge breakfast of rava idlis, dosas, khara bath, grape juice, almond milk and gulab jamuns.

The Green Heritage walk is conducted by BangaloreWalks.com and happens on weekends.