Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Tulip Time

April end and the arrival of May.

Park on the shores of Ottawa's Dow Lake to take in the tulips. There are supposed to be over 300,000 tulips planted here.

From Wiki:

In 1945, the Dutch royal family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in gratitude for Canadians having sheltered Princess Juliana and her daughters for the preceding three years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, in the Second World War.

The most noteworthy event during their time in Canada was the birth in 1943 of Princess Margriet to Princess Juliana at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. The maternity ward was declared to be officially a temporary part of international territory, so that she would be born in no country and would inherit only her Dutch citizenship from her mother. In 1946, Juliana sent another 20,500 bulbs requesting that a display be created for the hospital, and promised to send 10,000 more bulbs each year.

The festival begins
Princess Margriet returns to Ottawa to attend the Canadian Tulip Festival in May 2002.In the years following Queen Juliana's original donation, Ottawa became famous for its tulips and in 1953 the Ottawa Board of Trade and photographer Malak Karsh organized the first "Canadian Tulip Festival". Queen Juliana returned to celebrate the festival in 1967, and Princess Margriet returned in 2002 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the festival
.

Tulips are ofcourse associated with Yash Chopra's classic:

But the song I prefer over that one is:

2 comments:

  1. I havent seen Silsila, but I know the songs - and Dekha ek Khwab is a MUCH nicer song. Although Amitabh's voice in "Yeh Kahaan aa gaye hum" is soooo Amitabh... like heavy black velvet :)

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  2. "heavy black velvet" - wow!!

    The other day TV was on couldn't really make out the words but just heard the sounds - I was downstairs - and I yelled up "Hey is that Amitabh?"

    Brat goes "How did you know?"

    Wish I'd known then to reply "Heavy black velvet!"

    LOL

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