Few years back, in 2013 to be exact, our daughter came into our lives. And before we knew it, the sleepless nights and endless cleaning and feeding cycles gave way to our little toddler, ready to run around whole day. Now the city we live in - Gurgaon - is an aspiring city and like any other aspiring city, natural resources are considered by town planners to be exploited for endless human needs and hardly given a thought to be conserved. As a result, Gurgaon is rapidly losing it's forest cover and wetlands all over. And more kids are losing touch with nature here everyday, as concrete and glitz takes over every inch of this city.
It was in this backdrop, that we started taking interest in Aravalli Biodiversity Park which was being developed as an urban forest by IAmGurgaon. An erstwhile mining site, this 150 hectares of mineral rich forest was dutifully exploited ...oops quarried for minerals and then abandoned as courts realized the value of protecting precious Aravallis, the oldest fold mountain range in the world.
Good sense prevailed and McG (Municipal Corporation of Gurgaon) decided to do what they can do best, keep away from maintaining it themselves. Only this time they chose wisely and handed over the development of park to IAmGurgaon, an NGO committed to make a difference in lives of Gurgaonites. Initial planning done, the key to restoring the site was in selection of right species of plants. In general, we Indians have developed a fetish for all things exotic, even if it's at the peril of losing our own superior and more adaptive native species. But we like foreign things and that's not just with Gurgaon, it's a national fetish. Only Gurgaon takes it several notches up. You just need to look at the names of societies here, and it becomes clear how much we love everything foreign. So in this backdrop, the botanist who was entrusted with selection of right species to be planted, had an arduous task at hand. Vijay Dhasmana, man in charge of plants, took up the challenge and led the movement to bring back native Aravalli flora back.
This is where we brought in our little toddler to the newly restored site, with it's jogging trackways freshly laid out. grasses all around taking roots and a whole manner of hardy trees and shrubs covering the forest bed. Coming from the choking city that is Gurgaon, first thing that hits you is the bout of fresh air. After spending few hours here with the fresh litter of pups and watching birds and butterflies, we finally left but all of us has fallen in love and we knew we'll come back.
And come back we did. Not one, but again and again, year on year. This urban forest took shape day by day, and we saw it growing literally in front of our eyes. From a wasteland, to a few cms tall saplings, to sparse vegetation, it's now a lush forest that's a botanist's dream, a birdwatcher's paradise, a painter's workshop, a star gazer's pedestal, a philosopher's garden. It's hard to define relationship Gurgaonites have with this one of it's kind forest that's grown literally out of the hands of a few committed possessed people.
We have seen birds here that were once thought rare for this region, we have watched silver moon filtered through canopy of leaves sitting under a Babool, we have seen clusters of butterflies mud puddling together, we have seen jewel beetles shining with blues and purples and greens on Ber (Ziziphus nummularia) bushes that I have never seen anywhere else, I have enjoyed the playfully howling pack of jackals at dusk, hares have darted away at our approaching steps, Neelgai (Blue Bull) loves this place. Anyone who has come here, has fallen in love with it. It's a magical place. Because it's here, where you experience how the land on which we now live, was thousands of years back. It's like a time-lapse on nature's timeline.
After a decade of restoration, the forest has now taken a momentum of it's own. Our hope is that in future, whoever takes care of this, takes time to fall in love first and then tends to it, only as much as is needed. Let the forest take care of it's own and let it be. Let the Dhau flourish, let the leaf litter continue to spread, let the butterflies enjoy their little patch of muddy swamps, let the thorns remain prickly enough, for this is what Aravallis stand for.
