With Tulips increasingly lighting up the country, Indians need not go Dutch

Not very many Indians may have seen tulips before rows of them became the setting for an extramarital celluloid Silsila over three decades ago. However, judging by the popularity of the Keukenhof gardens in Holland for Indian tourists ever since, the flower has a pretty special place in Indian hearts now. Its star billing at this year’s display of winter blooms in Rashtrapati Bhavan’s Mughal Gardens is entirely understandable therefore.

After all, Indians are now quite used to seeing the usual roses, dahlias and chrysanthemums, not to mention the humbler annuals and craved something new. So, the initiative of the late former First Lady Usha Narayanan — already a fan of the flower — to plant tulip bulbs gifted by a visiting Dutch dignitary in the president’s garden must be appreciated.

That tulips are a real tourist magnet is amply evident from the hordes that throng to see the Keukenhof’s seven million blooms and Ottawa’s one million every year. Rashtrapati Bhavan’s 5,000 are modest by comparison, but maybe another city or organisation could contemplate a grander display in the future. Since tulips actually went westwards from Persia around the same time they came east to India with the Mughals via Central Asia, their reappearance in the Mughal Gardens in New Delhi is absolutely apt!