If X-Mas is here can New Year be far behind? Before you are done with your X-Mas cake, the New Year beckons you with whiskey bottles for a bash. Revelry begins with good news of New Year resolutions and ends with bad news of drunken brawls and road accidents.

These two days of the Christian calendar are of great attraction to students and youngsters ready to spend money and spare time. For some seniors home is ideal and to some daughters’ home is comfortable.

Some go to exotic places in the company of friends. Those who are Club-birds generally settle for Clubs where they go in style and leave toping, embarrassing the charming ladies. Let it be.

As for me, I decided to stay at home for reasons of health, age and failure to find friends as when young and spirited! And then, the New Year surprise happened. A friend suggested we check-in to the heritage Brindavan Hotel at KRS that has seen the glorious days of Wadiyar dynasty.

White and Brown Sahebs stayed and frolicked there drinking and dancing celebrating Christmas and New Years. Hoping the hotel overlooking the famous Brindavan Gardens may have retained its old world charm, I intuitively agreed without a second thought.

It was a pleasant evening, there was a nip in the air but alas, there were no flowers in the Garden, naturally no fragrance. I had experienced the subtle fragrance of jasmine, rose and sampige wafting in the air there decades ago since I first visited the Brindavan Gardens in 1958. At that time it had become known all over India, even abroad, because of a famous dance sequence shot in the Gardens with Sandhya and Gopi Krishna for the Hindi film of V. Shantaram ‘Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje.’ It  became so famous that a painting of a scene from the film was done on the inner wall of the Northern Jayarama-Balarama Arch Gates of the Mysore Palace. In later years, they ruined it in the name of restoring the fading painting and now it is gone.

Thereafter, Brindavan Gardens became a great tourist attraction and a favourite outdoor shooting location for films of all languages, like what Kashmir was.

Sadly, the attraction of these two places is no longer there for Film Producers, Brindavan Gardens is garden only in name and Kashmir is haven for terrorists. Thanks to our politicians.

The credit for building Krishna Raja Sagar (KRS) Dam goes to the Mysore King Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV and his Dewan Sir M. Visvesvaraya. The credit for giving us Brindavan Gardens goes to the Dewan of Mysore Sir Mirza Ismail who shaped it after the Mughal style Shalimar Garden in Kashmir, Srinagar, near the Dal Lake. A few years back I visited the Shalimar (Mughal) Garden and was disappointed. Now this New Year’s day too, I was disappointed with the Brindavan Gardens.

A flower garden is a living organism. It has to be attended with tender care every day, which is why we have horticulturists with required qualification to maintain the garden. They also must have a sense of beauty and aesthetics to form the layouts, prepare the flower-beds, lay the lawns and create water bodies. However, if they love money more than the garden, then you will not find a garden but a “work in progress” board. We read in newspapers heavy budgetary allocation for Brindavan Gardens but we do not see the change on the ground. Only change this time I saw was paving of walking paths with concrete blocks.

This is the season of flower shows but the Brindavan Gardens was looking barren. Flower beds are sans flowers, only dug up to prepare the beds. No captivating showers of fountains like before. When R. Gundu Rao was the Chief Minister he introduced the Musical Fountain, a great attraction and also piped music all over the vast 65-acre garden area. Apart from these, it also had topiary works of animals and birds, pergola etc. There used to be gentle water jets in the flowing canal with walkways on either side and ping-pong balls would be dancing at the tip of the water jet — a great wonder and attraction for children, specially. Now none. Work in progress!

In the evening, there was illumination which was in low-key. May be because of the national mourning in honour of Dr. Manmohan Singh, former Prime Minister who passed away on Dec. 26. Anyway, Brindavan Gardens is no longer what it was in the 1980s and before. There is utter chaos in the parking and entry area. Tourists will come because we are too many people in a vast country. But after the experience, one may not venture a second visit nor will recommend the garden as a must visit. There is the dam and water is plenty, but lawns are dry. No proper, responsible upkeep of the garden. May be due to too much of politics and little of love for the  Brindavan Gardens.

After seeing the fate of the Brindavan Gardens, the poor condition of access road, exploitative behaviour of the toll collectors and those who collect the parking fee, the entry fee, the road-side shops and eateries, in a disorderly and chaotic condition, one would feel like running away from the place as quickly as one could. The gate collection, I am told, is very good and with that income alone the authorities can maintain the garden in good shape during every season of the year — summer, monsoon and winter.

When I left the Royal Orchid Brindavan Garden Palace & Spa next morning the only thought that crossed my mind was: Dewan Sir Mirza Ismail must be turning in his grave in grief at the utter neglect of his dream garden that he created with so much of aesthetics and love.

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