Walking Through Time: MCDM uncovers the stories of Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Botanical Udayan and Zoo
26-August-2026
Mumbai is a city where people are always in a rush, buildings rise and roads change. And yet, in the middle of all the chaos lies a place that has been silently watching it all since 1861. Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Botanical Udyan and Zoo, or as Mumbaikars lovingly call it ‘Rani Baug’.
As students of MCDM at XIC, we had a wonderful opportunity to visit and experience the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Botanical Garden and Zoo on 26th August 2026, organised by Ms Richa Pinto (visiting faculty). The field visit was part of the Reporting and Feature Writing module. Spread over 60 acres, this place was something much more than a green patch in the middle of Mumbai. We expected a garden visit, but left feeling like we had met a very old Mumbaikar.
Our guides Hutokshi Rustomfram and Sweedl Shidkar introduced us to this heritage that seemed something simple like trees. 4,142 of them, belonging to 256 species.
But the more we walked, the less these felt like numbers.
There was an iconic 500 year old Baobab tree from Africa with a porous trunk capable of storing up to 1,000 litres of water. Then there was what they call the scariest tree - the Ghost tree, Sterculia urens, growing around rocks that apparently glisten at night.
There was an Elephant Apple tree, nearly a century old, whose seeds need to pass through an animal before they can germinate. A Chocolate tree that tempted us all to taste it, simply by its smell. We realised that even trees have personalities.
The Japanese Garden almost felt like therapy. Temple trees shed their flowers where they fall, a quiet symbol of life after death. Nearby, fruit eating bats hang from the trees that act as the “farmers of the world”, helping pollinate hundreds of plant species. And in the midst of all the stillness, there were things that had moved, leaving us moved too.
The David Sassoon Clock Tower was brought into the garden in 1868 with 4 arches that stand for morning, afternoon, evening and night. It is positioned according to the Renaissance Axial Points. The original Kala Ghoda statue found its way here in 1965.
The Elephanta statue from Gharapuri Island broke literally into pieces while transporting here in 1864 but was restored by Sir George Birdwood. Even Mumbai’s statues, we learned, have stories of changing addresses.
Perhaps, this is what makes Rani Baug so special. It is one of the few places where Mumbai’s natural heritage and built heritage exist side by side. The arches, columns, statues, and clock tower tell one story while the trees tell another. We ended the visit by meeting the garden's smallest story with perhaps the biggest lesson. The star of Rani Baug - The Krishna Buttercup is a genetic mutation. Its seeds are sterile. Every existing tree has grown from this one through stem cuttings. It cannot really reproduce the conventional way and yet, it survives.
Maybe, this is exactly what Rani Baug has been doing for more than 160 years now.
Surviving Mumbai. Changing with it. And, quietly reminding us that sometimes the things we think are simply just standing still are actually the ones that have seen it all.
By Ashmita Mehta (MCDM)
Photographs by: Tanisha Pandey