Work on the Metro Rail on MG Road has begun to progress ....Looking back..... A bird’s eye view of the Parade Grounds had a grassy central area and a large body of water at one corner, surrounded by dense vegetation on its south-western periphery. That brief verdant section, after the rains, momentarily took you to the lush richness of the Malnad. In more recent times, separating the historic military grounds and the road is a splendorous evergreen bush bearing purple-pink flowers, and a walkway. The radiant plant has a hoary background. A French Navy Admiral, Louis Antoine de Bougainville, ‘discovered’ it growing in wild splendour in Brazil in 1768. He carried the exotic plant to the western world from where it eventually found its way to British India, and the famous embankment on South Parade.