Green getaway

A mongoose sprints across the path, leaving a dustcloud in its wake.

The Northern Ridge is one of the few green patches in the city

A mongoose sprints across the path, leaving a dustcloud in its wake. A peacock pauses in its solitary hopscotch to look askance. Shrill squeaks tear through the smoggy morning stillness as squabbling babbles flit over the thornscrub. It is possible to entertain oneself for hours on end just picking their brilliant feathers off the ground8212;87 hectares of it. Here, at the Northern Ridge, also known as the Kamla Nehru Park, once part of the Aravalli range, birdwatchers have spied the rufous treepie, the common parakeet, the Indian grey hornbill, the kingfisher and the green bee-eater. The woods may not be dark and deep, but they do have promises to keep8212;promises of clean air for the Capital8217;s urban sprawl and the semblance of a habitat to animals, the misfits of an ever-expanding city.

The gate8212;with entry barred for vehicles8212;with a side-entrance that leads into the park separates the thoroughfare of Delhi University from the 8216;reserve forest8217; that stretches on to Civil Lines. The joggers are few and far apart, and monkeys spill on to the road from every possible branch.

By the side of a cleanswept road in the park is a Meteorological Department office, which claims to be the only international seismological observatory in Delhi. Further inward, the shrubbery gives way to gnarled trees and vines. Says Gopi Chand, a gardener, 8220;A variety of trees grow here8212;including the traditional neem, gulmohar and ashoka.8221; Govind Singh, a PhD student at the School of Environmental Studies, Delhi University, who runs the Delhi Greens Blog, says a lot of the new plants are crotons and modern potted varieties planted to make the area look attractive. 8220;Originally, due to the semi-arid nature of the land, there was little vegetation. Then, in the early 1900s, the British planted trees like the prosopis juliflora a type of keekar. The status of the water table in north Delhi is good,8221; he says.

Now, with lush green patches, bamboo clusters and gardens with swings and benches, the barrenness may be a thing of the past, but something else in the park8212;most of which is maintained by the Delhi Development Authority8212;that belongs to history wears a barren look. Several ASI-protected monuments8212;forgotten little structures of rock and mortar, their entrances barred to the world8212;dot its expanse. Crows cackle away around these nameless relics of an undated past. At a remove from the paved path, among thorny shrubs spotted with dried berries, a blue egg-fly reposes on a blade of grass. Common striped tiger butterflies flutter away their 15-day lifespans.

Past an uncharacteristically lush garden, a signboard points to Khooni Khan Lake. Ducks and swans waddle in the 80-foot-deep algae-covered waters as monkeys watch from the railing. Skirting the lake, one is back on the main path that leads to the Rajpur Road exit.

Sweepers rake autumn leaves off the road8212;they scatter like restless thoughts over the park8217;s varied vistas, their crunch amplified by the silence. Once in a while, the crunch underfoot may be an apple snail, long dead and half-buried in the mud, even as the 8216;green lungs8217; of the Ridge breathe life into the Capital.