Dilli darshan with a difference

Forty-odd people have assembled at the fuchsia-drenched Max Mueller Bhawan, one of the organisers of the eco-art festival. They are students, architects, tourists from Vienna and London, and retired gentlemen with ever-ready professional cameras. The first destination on the south-central route, Agrasen ki bavdi, is a short walk away, tucked into a quaint lane on Hailey Road.

The 14th-century stepwell at the heart of the city once harnessed groundwater, but today, even a heavy monsoon fails to fill it up. At the bottom is a symbolic installation by Asim Waqif8212;a large, white air balloon shaped like a mineral water can and fastened to an aquarium. As Govind Singh8212;who founded Delhi Greens in March 20078212;and his colleagues Rishabh Parmar and Vasudha Mehta, explain the relevance of a bavdi, someone comes up with a kooky idea: why not use the monument as an open-air theatre? It doesn8217;t take long for the group to warm up to Delhi8217;s backstory8212;and to each other.

We hop on to a DTC bus hired for the purpose, and set off for the curious unknown of the Bhuli Bhatiyari Park on Link Road, Jhandewalan. Its rocky gradient sprawled across 80.79 acres, the park is flanked by a wastewater treatment plant on one side and a wetland that wears a septic look, on the other. Parts of the park have been dug up8212;incredibly, DDA has lost track of a leaky pipe. The dirt path leads to the ruins of Bhuli Bhatiyari Mahal. 8220;It was built in the 14th century by Ferozeshah Tughlaq and served as a hunting lodge. There were lions in the Aravallis then,8221; Govind says.

The next8212;and final8212;destination is the 692-acre Aravalli Biodiversity Park, where Professor Vikram Soni of the National Physical Laboratory tells us of a curious natural experiment in forestry. 8220;This used to be a quarry of Badarpur stone till 1989-90. After quarrying stopped, the wind deposited seeds and soil in the crevices in the quartzite8212;which is two-and-a-half billion years old. The forest you see here8212;neem, shisham, ranjh trees, in addition to the prosopis juliflora kabuli keekar planted by the British8212;has come up naturally due to quarrying, which is frowned upon by environmentalists,8221; he says.

Authorities of the park8212;the foundation was laid in 2004, but it has not yet been thrown open to the public8212;have undertaken a phased uprooting of the prosopis, which depletes the water table, planting endemic varieties. Park manager Dr Shah Hussain says the forest is home to 160 species of birds and animals like the nilgai and the jackal. The Delhi of these parks and spaces is a living, breathing being8212;it stretches its limbs far and wide, stirring in the winter breeze that evokes our individual imaginations of its past and its future.