When I was awarded the Bharat Ratna in 1997, Chitra Narayanan (the daughter of the president, K.R. Narayanan) took me, my brother and his grandchildren around the Mughal Garden. It was such an enjoyable experience that I expressed my desire to see the splendour of the garden during a full moon night. The president and his wife, Mrs Usha Narayanan, heard of it. From then on, whenever I attended an official banquet, the president and the First Lady invited me to stay in Rashtrapati Bhavan. At that time I did not realize that I was going to see more than sixty full-moon nights in Rashtrapati Bhavan. In the time I was there, the Mughal Garden became a great experimental platform for me. It was a great communication medium between me, nature, and the citizens of the country; a place where I met people from diverse walks of life, including specialists in herbal plants, for which there was a section in the estate; the birds and animals that frequented the gardens became my great companions; and the serene and orderly environment of the garden and its magnificent trees gave me a sense of peace.
