[Reader-list] Butchering Trees and Pavements

[Ravi Agarwal]

Dear all,

As I spend another morning today trying to gather evidence of the  
trees , over 2500, marked for felling, I find I cannot shoot for more  
than some minutes. To see fully grown trees, of all shades and  
varieties, the type you cannot find in Delhi any more, some over 50  
years old marked for felling in yellow ink and numbers etched onto  
the tree trunks, is more than I can accept. Behind the construction  
boards of the HSBS ( High Capacity Bus Service) lies a trail of  
disaster. Uprooted giants of trees, some axed, some bleeding at the  
roots, mercilessly felled.

I know of no other city where 8 land higways criss cross it. ( From  
exisiting 6 lane this will now become 8 lane with the new service).  
Cleave it through and hack all that in its way. And a citenzery whcih  
is so quiet that it took a week to even get the media to do a story  
on it. There is such silence and such uncertainty. The isolation  
which can be afforded through the window panes of cars, where we sit  
an decide if we can afford to raise our voices or maybe this will go  
away and no one will know. Like it never hapenned.

My friend the photo printer told me "dil dehal jaata hai jab mei us  
sarak per jaato hoon. Kitne bade and sunder per, aise hi kaat  
denge.?" My heart stops when I go on that road, will such big and  
majestic trees just be cut? Another friend who lives in Saket,  
refuses to look out of the taxi window, since it upsets her so much.  
Like it does me.

Whose consensus was sought. When this project was approved. Who made  
the decision that the road is needed. Who saw the traffic studies?  
Who justified it. Who executed it? How is the consensus made? How are  
such decisions taken? Someone's pet project. Someone well respected  
in the city.  Someone who has always talked about pedisterisation and  
cycle ways. Now that very project stripping the city of trees, and  
pavements. For a high capacity bus!

In the last post I wrote about my inability to act. I wonder if it is  
the larger inability to act. How we seem to have said 'yes' without  
saying anything. How we maybe are caught up in our not wanting to  
neogotiate our little gains or how we justify them to ourselves (the  
city needs better transport! - read as "I like my car!"). There is  
not point thinking and pontificating if we are not prepared to  
participate in what is going on. The city has been changing as I  
write. By April end, the city would have lost over 3000 of its most  
glorious and old trees. Then we can get to work on time. I suppose -  
to a better future!

ravi agarwal