Once
this was all part of Governor's Estate. Now it is fragmented and the major part
is a thickly forested game sanctuary where the spotted deer and the black buck
roam about and a wealth of smaller fauna thrive. This is the country's only Wild
Life Sanctuary within a city's limits. Raj Bhavan, the Governer's mansion, occupies
one end of the park, and at the other is the beautiful forest-girt campus of Chennai's
famous Indian Institute of Technology, one of Asia's foremost technical educational
institutions.
In between, and edging the road, are a famous Cancer Institute,
a children's park with its own mini zoo and mini-railway, a snake park, rich in
reptiles, and Memorials to Gandhiji, Rajaji, the first Indian Governer -General,
and Kamaraj, a great national leader. Latest addition to this array of memorials
is that of Bakthavatchalam, former chief minister of Tamil Nadu.
Opposite
the park are the Anna University of Technology, whose nucleus was the oldest technical
school in the East; and the Central Leather Reasearch Institute. To the east of
the park as well as at the back of it sprawls the campus of the Central Institute
of Technology. Not far away is one of the country's finest Race-courses.