A Personal Shalimar Bagh in Delhi Spring

Ghulam Nabi Azad (76) and I have been friends for many years, and for a while were also in the Rajya Sabha together, where he was the Leader of the Opposition (LoP). Recently, he invited my wife and I to come for tea to see his garden in full glory in the brief Delhi spring.

- Pavan K Varma

The garden was, indeed, a riot of colours that left the viewer mesmerised. Clearly, it was one of the great joys of his life, a labour of love. Salvias, pansies, candytufts, hollyhocks, antirrhinum, calendulas, petunias, roses, dahlias—any flower you can think of—could be seen in rhapsodical abundance. Photography being another of his hobbies, he took dozens of photographs of us to best capture the garden's beauty.

Gardening is not a new passion for this political veteran. In the 1990s, when a leading newspaper asked him what he would have done if he had not become a politician, he answered without a moment's hesitation: a mali (gardener). What is amazing is that he pursued this enduring romance with nature throughout his exceptionally demanding and successful political career. One proof of this is that, although he occupied posts that entitled him to much bigger government houses, he refused to shift, in order to remain loyal to his garden in South Avenue Lane.