BENGALURU: Right inside Lalbagh Main Gate is the erstwhile official residence of the superintendent/director of Lalbagh. It now stands desolate, its hopes of restoration dashed by a blame game between the Horticulture and State Archaeological departments.
Walkers pass by without so much as a second glance at the board that reads Dr MH Marigowda National Horticulture Library. A cobbled path amid crotons leads to a reddish structure, the erstwhile bungalow of the Director of Lalbagh.
“John Cameron, Gustav Hermann Krumbiegel and the first Indian to hold the post after independence, H C Javaraya, each lived here for a few years,” says architect Mansoor Ali, who has been documenting historical structures. The bungalow is now named after one of Javaraya’s successors, who also lived here.
The Public Works Department had started restoration work, but Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) protested as some tiles on a section of a roof that was to be retained were removed, and lime plaster was allegedly chipped off from more parts of the wall than deemed necessary and replaced with a cement substitute.
“It took us a couple of years to convince the government that some buildings there – the library, Krumbiegal Hall and the aquarium – needed conservation,” says Meera Iyer of INTACH. “But when the contractor was picked, we found it was someone who had no experience with conservation work.”
The group even offered a list of recommended contractors. “Then, finally, about a year ago, we received a letter saying, INTACH was no longer a consultant as it was not cooperating,” she says.
The restoration work was then handed over to the Archaeological Department, but no visible progress has been made since 2014. The door from the porch, with cobwebs all around, has been padlocked. Most of the tiles on the roof here have been removed. The off-white walls are discoloured, with paint peeling off near the front door.
On the left, an open French window with some of its glass shattered, offers a view into the dusty inside of what was perhaps the veranda. A door connecting to the room within has been fastened shut.
The high-roofed porch of the British-style bungalow was designed to shelter a horse-drawn carriage. This indicates that it was built around the year that Krumbiegel was born – the most recent flower show celebrated the German botanist-garden designer’s 150th birth anniversary.
“Cars came to India only 105 to 110 years ago,” says Harish J Padmanabha, Javaraya’s grandson. He continues to refer to the gabled bungalow his grandparents, father, uncles and aunts lived in for about a decade as the director’s residence.
However, he says, books in the Horticulture Department’s archives indicate that the bungalow was built in 1832, after Colonel Munroe, a serving British army officer, took charge of the botanical garden. Iyer, though, puts the date somewhere in the mid-1800s.
Ignore the board with the words ‘Private, No Admission’ by the garden gate and walk through the pathway, you might get a peek into the few rooms currently in use, a stark contrast to the outside.
If you ask to see the library, you are pointed to a room with stands holding standard periodicals. Other books have been moved elsewhere, you are told. The walls of an adjoining room are painted purple, while another along the corridor has some well-maintained soft furnishing.
At first, it was the superintendent’s bungalow, says Padmanabha. “That was in Cameron’s time (he took over as the superintendent of Lalbagh in March, 1874, and remained in charge of the garden for over three decades). But once Krumbiegel took charge, it became the director’s,” he explains.
His family, he says, lived here between 1932 and 1942, before which they stayed in the superintendent’s bungalow, a stone’s throw from the Lalbagh administrative office.
He recalls his grandmother, Nagamma, telling him the living room had continental-style wooden flooring, a design element Padmanabha imbibed when he had his house in Basavanagudi built. “I think I have seen it too. It was complete with a kitchen and parlour,” the mechanical engineer says. Built during colonial times, it mirrors British architecture in full, he adds.
At the back was a tennis court. “My grandfather and grandmother played tennis here,” says Padmanabha. “I remember seeing the court too.”
It probably faded out of existence in the 1970s, Ali says. Marigowda, the last occupant of the bungalow, had the wooden trellis at the windows replaced with mesh, offers Padmanabha. But larger ones at the porch still stand.
Green Heritage
Several of the mango trees in the 240 acres of greenery that surrounds the heritage structure are rumoured to have stood the test of time since Tipu Sultan’s rule. “I’m not sure how true it is, but many of the other trees that surround the bungalow are about as old as it is,” Padmanabha says.
The Men Who Lived