Flower show visitors allowed to park vehicles on Lalbagh greens

Long weekend draws crowds to Lalbagh
Deccan Herald

With a long weekend at people’s disposal, all roads seemed to lead to the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens, where the annual Independence Day Horticultural Show is being held, on Sunday.

Traffic jam, holidaying families, friends and couples, distraught policemen, not-a-second-to spare ticket counters and litter flying all across from overflowing dustbins characterised Lalbagh, which only a couple of days ago, was as quiet as it could be.

Starting with the BMTC buses, every lip seemed to be uttering the word Lalbagh.

But what hit one’s eye this time was the permission given for vehicles to park within the garden areas, instead of the usual parking space near the Golden Jubilee hall. Consequently, there was chaos, with vehicles parked all over the green grass, haphazardly.

“This is the first time that parking has been permitted in areas other than the GJ Hall area. Most of the parking areas are full and we don’t know what to do,” said one of the policeman, supervising traffic close to the Lalbagh lake.

The ticket counters had to work overtime, having to cater to people crowding their booths, again breaching all requests for forming queues.

When Deccan Herald queried one of the counter operators on the number of tickets sold till noon approximately, he said, sparing just about a second, “We had 11 books with 200 tickets each. All of them have been sold out.”

If the famous restaurant MTR on Lalbagh Road and others reported brisker business, the demand for from small-time hawkers of bhel puri, maize, popcorn, puffed rice and other eats was no less.

With a similar day to go before the show ends, it may well take a while for Lalbagh to get to back to its quiet cleaner self.