Jawaharalal Nehru Park - ITI Colony

We have been to this nature park last winter. Despite staying in the area for nearly three years, it was only a few months ago that we popped into the park and discovered its beauty. The park trees were shedding leaves during winter. It felt arid and uninteresting. But this time there were lot more to explore and relive childhood days!

Amongst core part of city, ITI colony one of greenest patch I know apart from Bangalore University and Lalbagh. From any overlook of the city nearby KR Puram, the long greenest patch belongs to ITI colony.

After savouring Krishna Janmashtami delicacies, we set out to immerse in nature walk on fine Saturday evening.

It has been many years since ITI shut down due to its technology becoming obsolete. Most of ITI income is from school which is situated inside the colony and real estates they own. Rest of the businesses either shutdown or sold out. They do not collaboration as well looks like. Lets not much dive deeper into company matters and its history.  My point was that the park would have been developed and evolved when ITI was in sane condition. Now the park has only natural parts maintained thanks to CSR by few corporates. The entertainment and flashy areas have already turned rustic. So lets begin the walk!

We took the north entrance where the park has ample parking space. I guess the general public is only allowed from this direction. The east gate is closed due to traffic issues. The south gate seems to admit only for ITI staff? I did not spot west gate. Here is photograph of the Nehru statue. The park is named after him

The park has limited timings unfortunately. A long 3hr but a brief 2hr period in evening. I guess its for better maintenance and safety from snakes. The board says it all when to arrive and depart. The guards drive you away precisely during closing time.

The stroll starts with spotting of kids play area. Since my guys have grown up, they aren't much interested in such amusements anymore. They preferred to walk with us. The other entrance attraction was installation of percolated wells to harvest rainwater. There is clear description and diagram of how system works. There are many such wells spread throughout the park. With such bleak monsoon seasons, we definitely felt the need of rainwater harvesting. The shade of the trees and dense vegetation help the water slowly settle and percolate through the soil across the area.

There are lot of tall trees here to behold with awe. The park has gigantic trees ranging from useful ones like Tamarind, Banyan tree to fancy tall trees. 

The interesting part of park is that trail is muddy than the artificial interlocks. It feels to be truly nature walk. The entire periphery is marked with distance covered if you follow the trail. The south entrance seems to be primary entrance since the distance marker set from this position.

A large termite mound inhabited by cobras. There isn't any guarantee of cobras living here but they are most revered in our region. The mound is guarded to protect people as well the mound. A shiva statue is installed at the front.

Nearby it, we have drinking water station. Perhaps, filtration unit. Its currently maintained and we could see people using the water. Not sure if it is potable enough to drink.

The entire periphery measures 600m as per marking. So its easy to count your distance if you can track the iterations. Jogging is prohibited in this park. Perhaps due to evading dust or causing disturbance to fellow walkers. Not aware of exact reason.

Yet another interesting part. I call it the “green tunnel”—vines carefully trained over an iron arch, creating a natural canopy. Kids loved it too! We had couple of picture shoot beneath the artistic greenery.

Some rays through greens

Now comes the most vital part of park. A large banyan tree spread over wider area attracts plenty of visitors to it. The most important part of it is the dangling roots :-). Myself and kids played holding the roots and playing swing. I relived childhood memories by swinging from dangling roots. Many followed us. They are stronger than your thoughts. Kids too enjoyed. The kids made their way onto a low-hanging branch and had a delightful time.

These experiences are now a rarity thanks to uncontrolled urbanization. The city has lost plenty of vegetation especially Banyan trees. The ever expanding city has no room for larger banyan trees. Its increasingly becoming harder to such nature park within city. Whatever is left, is being lifted by real estate tycoons in name of development and ironically backed by government. Only money has power and citizens are powerless. Leaving aside politics, we spent maximum time in this spot. On our every round (which was around 4), we stopped by this banyan tree to relive childhood moments.

Tangled branches standing strong from years

Feels like nervous system or blood vessel interconnect

The next stop was the dead fountain which has an arch shaped pedestrian footbridge. Kids loved walking over it.

It looks like the fountain water flowed through the passage towards the larger one and recycled back? I am not sure about design or operation but its now decommissioned due to no maintenance. The revenue from ITI wouldn't be sufficient to manage the trivial things. Also ITI isn't profitable business anymore. Moreover, I dont think this park is yet been transferred to local corporation and I hope they don't. I am saying this out of anxiety because the government would completely obliterate the park vegetation to bring up urban activity.

There is a defunct aquarium further along the trail. Its rustic appearance may seem photogenic to a photographer, but to the general public, it is merely a crumbling remnant, good only for hosting ghosts or harbouring deadly reptiles.

Only artificial fishes are alive here

Yet an abandoned structure along the walk

Some more vegetation glimpses from the walk.

Beautiful flowers. They are just part of weeds. Not the best breed but were captivating to capture

There are some weirdos too!

The wilted flowers reflected the poor level of maintenance in the park. Even the marigolds, which require relatively little water to thrive, looked withered.

The last round. These guys are more privileged than humans in India. They have a free pass to roam anywhere and can be deemed innocent even when they pose a deadly threat to humans. God save this country.

The watchman starts blowing whistle 5 minutes before closing time. This is to provide enough buffer for crowd to clear up. The best part of the park is lush greenery and natural trail. If you are looking for artistic hangout or fancy real estate, this is not the place for you!

El-nino demon and Homecoming

Its been quite protracted detachment from native this time for nearly 4-5 months. There were umpteen reasons which kept my native distant. Finally, I had to mandatorily visit to attend our annual ceremony gathering which is led by our family. At least this was a genuine reason to visit the native house and bask in nature's beauty. A short respite from incessant blare of traffic. While the El-nino demon has almost muted activity over Arabian sea, there was still some strays left which are transporting moisture to coastal land.

This year's focal point remains to be deficit monsoon and unprecedented weather. El Niño burst our bubble of expectations for a normal monsoon. Here is a snapshot taken at the end of September 2026 from the official IMD website. There is a whopping 1,000 mm difference across the length and breadth of coastal Karnataka. Mangaluru city is being measured for the first time, so there is no historical record against which to measure the deviation. But for sure, the deficit is likely to be in the same range. I strongly opine that the overall annual figure may even fail to touch the magical 3,000 mm mark.

Perhaps its end of disappointing monsoon season as well with whopping 1000mm deficit. Unfortunately, we may not see further rains streaming from west anymore this year.  The end of September officially marks the end of the South-West Monsoon period, even though the wind pattern doesn't change. The deficit of 1000mm can be only be filled with couple of extreme rains which is practically impossible. The North-East monsoon hardly brings 200mm rains in coast and historically there are no instances of NE monsoon bringing extreme rains except during Cyclone formations drifting from east to west. Cyclone Fenjal was one such example where some of coastal regions experienced 200mm+ rains in December. Again, thats a one in millennium phenomenon.

A system in bay has triggered short period of rainfall in our region. Fortunately, this overlapped with my visit. I could witness rains for couple of days. It was joyful to watch and be part of the concluding rains. There was expectation of extreme rains but later withdrawn. Red alert was toned down to yellow alert due to system moving in unfavourable direction. The first day of landing was full of rains.  It rained after a long gap of 3 weeks and people were joyous. Here is short video of first monsoon glimpse and perhaps last glimpse. The season ended with our region in the red zone (-30%).

The other side of story is that El-nino gripping the region is real. The canals are not roaring, the sun is blistering, the green cover is partially withered, the wells have evaporated significant water already.

The streams, which would normally be muddy, are now clear due to the lack of a strong gush.

The highland  paddy harvest has already turned yellow which people are afraid would never resurrect. Its such waste of money and resource. Nowadays, agriculture is second source of income which means nobody in our region are solely dependent on farming. Another painful aspect is that the oscillating weather is frequently triggering viral infections, which implies most penny goes into doctor appointments.

I couldn't spend much time outdoors on the second day, but managed few cloud shots.

I extended the native stay for one more day due to pending chores. The rain was completely gone and sun was smiling over green landscape. The temperature had dipped but not humidity. It was still pleasant to have noon walk. Here are the extended pictures from extended stay.

Morning walk was fleeting but invigorating. Here are some glimpses.

Lowlands have paddy seeds at nascent stage. Hope they sustain till they mature

My own shadow over the paddy field seemed like a scarecrow, an age-old technique used to veer birds away. As generations evolve, birds have become more intelligent, easily distinguishing between living and non-living things.

Hummock of weeds caught my attention

No sign of clouds gazing at the west. Absolutely disastrous monsoon season.

The extended and patient walk was during mid day. Despite high humidity, the Sun was manageable and pleasant. Lets start with vital part of our living, the paddy fields. These are low lying areas and hence contain sufficient standing water as of now. Not all paddy fields are thriving. Harvests in highlands have already withered and would never be back to life even if monsoon takes momentum from now onwards.

Amidst the fields, I heard unusual splashing sounds, which turned out to be a peacock strutting through the water.  No picture since bird flew away swiftly on spotting me :-).

This shed amidst field is where I lost chappals during childhood days walking through floods. Now we have better commute paths to school. There is no need to stroll through difficult terrains or wobbling through field paths.

This well acts as backup when monsoon takes long break. Under any circumstances, the stored water is just workaround. The plants also know that they thrive only when water pours from heavens.

One such phenomenon in millennium is sufficient for farming community to loose confidence and abandon fields. Beleaguered by labour shortages, rising costs, stagnant prices due to intermediaries, and vagaries of weather, can prompt them to shun farming. Fortunately, most of them depend agriculture as second source of income

If there is no timely rain, the paddy turns yellow and eventually drying up. The subsequent revival of rain post this cannot revive the plants anymore. That's why paddy needs definitive rain pattern unless you depend on canals or not dependent on rains.

We used to climb the rock hill which was mostly slippery during monsoon season. Nothing felt difficult those days. Floods were normal, it never felt battle. Nowadays we detest even 10 mins of rain. In hindsight,  it feels like tough commute. Crossing running brooks and raging canals over narrow, slippery stone footbridges used to be normal during our school days.

Green cover everywhere. The rendezvous of green vegetation, blue skies with interspersed clouds is true magical moment.

When you have pristine setup, you don't need any edit. This Shankapushpa (Butterfly pea) was not edited at all. It came beautiful with straight out of camera. Only edit done was cropping

Evening walk was towards our uncle' shop. Uncle recently passed away. His memories haunt when I visit the shop. The visit turned melancholic. Amidst the pile of groceries, I could feel a void.

On way back, I snapped few canals passing beside the fields. They act as natural water source of cultivation. With rains tapering off, not sure how long the flow will sustain owing to blistering sunlight.

Last goodbye before boarding the bus. Got to see a Malabar pied hornbill sheltering in this large tree. They were flying across the forests and fields. The tree is surrounded by sprawling paddy fields, which essentially satisfies its food needs. This picture is quite special. This pair has chosen our village as habitat and I have been observing them since 6 years. The circled speck at top right corner in this picture is one of them flying to other part of forest.

Time heals is an ancient adage but doesn't fit current era. Either we need to take corrective actions or move on. Cut a forest or tree. Time healing can be constructive or destructive. Nature either can create intense weather via extreme heat or extreme rains to recover itself. So come out of delusion that time heals everything.

I only wish the land of my country flourish every year yielding golden food.

"मेरे देश की धरती सोना उगले , उगले हीरे मोती
मेरे देश की धरती"