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Borivli’s green retreat: Sanjay Gandhi National Park

Most of us have already been to the SGNP, but the beauty of the Park prompts one to visit again.
by Adithi Muralidhar

Part 2 of the ‘Green Hangouts’ Diaries

If you live in the western suburbs, you’ve probably visited SGNP (Sanjay Gandhi National Park) by now. One of a kind, this national park is unique, in that, it is situated within city limits. Supporting a healthy population of leopards, this national park is also home to over 50 other species of mammals, 155 species of butterflies, 65 species of reptiles and amphibians, 800 species of plants and over 250 species of birds!

The National Park sprawls over an area of approximately 103 square kilometers but more than half of it constitutes as core area where the general public are not allowed (which is a good thing). The park’s buffer zone has several nature trails like the Kanheri Cave trail, Shilonda trail that are open to the public who want to go hiking, rock-climbing or on a nature trip.

What’s so special? During the monsoons, the entire park sports a bright green shade and one can come across numerous insects and birds even while not attempting to actually look for them! SGNP is frequented by daily joggers and walkers from the nearby residential areas and also by schools who bring their students here for their ‘one-day-picnic’. One can even see the huge settlements of huts that have encroached the park from the borders. For people who are looking for a more ‘touristy’ experience, there are lion and tiger safaris at the Park, but one must realise that these large mammals are not found naturally in this park. Leopards on the other hand are natural inhabitants of this place.

Given the delicate situation with the park especially in terms living in close proximity of the elusive leopards, a project called “MumbaikarsforSGNP” was initiated which is a collaborative effort between the State Forest Department, Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS) of Bangalore, some members from the scientific community and a few conservationists which include some Mumbaikars. The main idea behind this initiative was to develop an alliance between the citizens of Mumbai and management authorities of the National Park.  They also have tie-ups with the Police Department and Fire brigade departments in order to tackle ‘leopard-emergencies’ more effectively.

Apart from being close to nature, SGNP also offers the visitor a rich knowledge of history. The Kanheri caves date back to the 3rd Century BC and they offer wonderful insights into theSGNP rich Buddhist culture of those times. The excavations at Kanheri are either chaityagrahas (place of worship of the Buddhist community), viharas (one or double enclosures where the Buddhist monks lived) or the podhis (water cisterns which were build to harvest rain water and use them during summer periods). You are also likely to find some rock-cut benches and /or seats.

SGNP is place for nature lovers, adventure lovers, as well as history lovers, and not to exclude the rest of the general public who just want to get away from the city life for a while!

Entry fees: You can also go to the Nature information Centre at the Park if you are looking for more information on the place. The entry fee for SGNP is as low as Rs 30 for adults and Rs 15 for children below 12 years of age. Additional fees are taken in case you want to take your vehicle till the Kanheri-cave parking area, or if you wish to do commercial photography or videography. The Park is open on all days, from 7.30 am to 6 pm. For more information, see http://www.mumbaikarsforsgnp.com/about_sgnp_information_for_tourists.htm

Getting there: The nearest railway station is Borivli station- East (Western line). The nearest bus stop is the Inter State bus stop (Kulupwadi), Sukarwadi bus stop, Omkar mandir bus stop, Borivli ST bus stand.

Adithi Muralidhar currently works in the field of science education research, in Mumbai. She is associated with Hypnale Research Station where she assists with various environment, wildlife conservation, education and community-related projects. She is a strong advocate of nature education.

Green hangouts is a series of stories celebrating Mumbai’s place in the green scheme of things, to coincide with Wildlife Week, which is celebrated from October 1 to 7 every year. 

(Pictures by Adithi Muralidhar. References: BNHS City Forest Report (2006), Avibase-The World Bird Database, The Archaeological Survey of India (http://asi.nic.in) and http://www.mumbaikarsforsgnp.com/about_sgnp_reports_articles.htm )

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Diaries

A spot of green at Colaba: Sagar Upvan aka BPT Garden

Most people in the city don’t even know that a green patch of serenity exists next to Colaba bus depot.
by Adithi Muralidhar

Part 1 of the ‘Green Hangouts’ diaries

With a population over 12 million, it can get a little suffocating when a Mumbaikar wants some space for himself. Invariably, the jaded Mumbaikar then seeks to retreat to a nearby hill-station or farm house in the outskirts, where he or she can relax, retreat and get rejuvenated.

If you notice, being close to nature is (very subtly) the basic requirement in such retreats! Well, there is some good news for all Mumbaikars. Khandala, Karjat or Lonavla are not the only destinations for weekend get-aways! You would be happy to know that the city itself harbours several green spaces amidst the urban concrete jungle. This piece explores one such green place in Mumbai, which would surely make you love the city a little bit more (at least, more than you already do!)

Sagar Upvan or Mumbai/Bombay Port Trust Garden aka BPT Garden

View of the Arabian Sea from BPT GardenA green hangout situated at the tip of South Mumbai, Colaba, the Sagar Upvan is owned by the Mumbai Port Trust and maintained with the help of World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and is truly a nature enthusiast’s delight! Spread over a meagre 12 acres, this garden offers some beautiful sights of the Arabian Sea from one side of the garden.

Beautiful green lawns and mounds, with sea facing benches, under the canopy of samudraphal trees; this tranquil piece of land commendably blocks out all the traffic noises from the outside. The sea breeze that cruises through one edge of the garden fills the air with a salty fresh fragrance. There are neatly paved walking tracks all through the garden and one can lie down in the green lawns if you need to catch up on your sleep!

There are hundreds of plants in the garden with special sections on palm trees, medicinal plants, rock garden and cacti section. The bright green flouresentish leaves and purple flowers of duranta plant attract loads of butterflies. The coppersmith barbets, purple-rumped sunbirds and tailor-birds dominate the avian group, while striped squirrels fumble up and down the trees. Bustling garden lizards and skinks come in your way if you wander into the bushes, but if you sit down in one place and just observe, you will be treated to an array of life that lives within these garden limits.

What else? There is also a sewage recycling plant near the garden that was developed by the MPT management so that there would be no shortage of water supply in the area. Apart from recycling the sewage, the plant also ensures a regular supply of water to the garden.

If you reach early enough, or during the late afternoons, you are likely to find young couples cuddling on the bench that face the sea. Senior citizens take strongly to this garden as their morning walking place. Very often, one even sees school and college students visiting this garden as part of their ‘local-educational-visit’.

While interacting with people, I found that many Mumbaikars did not even know about the existence of such a green patch in the middle of South Mumbai. I myself was introduced to sagar-upvanthis place just a couple of years ago and since then, I have strongly recommended that others visit this park at least once. Those of you who work in South Mumbai can steal away some moments in the day in this garden, as it is well connected by road.

The nominal fee for entering the park is Rs 2 and a camera fee of only Rs10 is charged. The park has free entry for senior citizens.

Getting there: The park is located on WG Union Road, beside Colaba Bus Depot. It is open on all days, from 6 am to 11 am; 4.30 pm to 8.30 pm. The nearest railway station is Churchgate (on the Western Line) and CST Station (on the Central Line). The nearest bus stop is Colaba Bus Depot.

Adithi Muralidhar currently works in the field of science education research, in Mumbai. She is associated with Hypnale Research Station where she assists with various environment, wildlife conservation, education and community-related projects. She is a strong advocate of nature education.

Green hangouts is a series of stories celebrating Mumbai’s place in the green scheme of things, to coincide with Wildlife Week, which is celebrated from October 1 to 7 every year. 

(Pictures by Adithi Muralidhar)

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Why should I keep a constant vigil?

The conclusion to yesterday’s ‘rape calculator’ story comes with a question to ponder on: is constant vigilance a viable option?
by Adithi Muralidhar

Part II  (Read Part I)

There are a few things that run in my mind, on a daily basis 24/7. It is something that I tend to keep myself aware of, at all times. And then I think, there might be so many like me…we sex pests in Mumbaihave these thoughts constantly guiding our every move while we take on our daily duties, be it at work, college, home or anywhere. We make important decisions at work, we are creative, we calculate and do other math, we manage households, we are caregivers, we love, we run businesses, we teach kids, we treat patients, we sing and dance, we manage accounts and finances, we travel and study, write and act…and then we deal with male chauvinism and family matters, and all this we do when something apart from our body functions (like breathing) is continuously working inside of us.

All the points listed in my previous post – these are things that most girls come to learn either on their own or are taught. It, of course, very subjective and depends on the individual girl and how violated she feels if something happens to her. Some women are the kind who would probably do everything opposite to what is listed, either because they are much more brave, or just to prove a point to society that it is not her problem to tackle such issues, which is as valid a stance that can be! While others can be the non-confrontational kind; and they will go to any lengths to avoid or prevent such incidences from happening. In fact, they may do so to such an extent that it would lead to putting themselves in a permanent state of discomfort. Similar efforts are also made by women who are maybe under peer pressure and worry constantly about society and “log kya sochenge”, and tend to just go with what is considered ‘good Indian girl’ behaviour.

unsafe mumbaiAnd then I think of those unfortunate incidences where the terrible act of rape occurs and I cannot help but think – ‘Oh, was it because she let down her guard for one moment? Was it because for five minutes, she was carefree and forgot to do her calculations correctly, or worse, was she so preoccupied with some other ‘really important’ work, that she let the calculator’s battery run low for a while…and what a terrible consequence she had to face! Imagine, carrying that weight around your head the whole time.’ What does a mother go through? She not only has that calculator set for herself, but she also has it set for her daughter(s). Every time she says – “Yes, you can go to the party, but be careful. Yes, but please be back home by midnight. Yes, but please get dropped home by a guy. Call me when you reach there…” she is doing all those calculations in her mind.

Why does a woman even have to be worried about these things in the first place? Isn’t it enough that they already have to deal with other kinds of inequalities and oppression in society? The worse thing is that most people think, ‘What can you do, this is how it is. This is normal.’

Well, it is not. No one deserves to live a life like this. Constant vigilance can drive a person insane. Previously, the scientific community viewed vigilance as something that is mentally undemanding. But recent studies in psychology tell us otherwise.

“… physiological and subjective reports confirm that vigilance tasks reduce task engagement and increase distress and that these changes rise with increased task difficulty”.

(Warm, Parasuraman & Matthews, 2008, p. 433)

The authors of the above paper of course extend their conclusion to occupations that involved being constantly vigilant, like being involved in military surveillance, air traffic mumbai by nightcontrol, cockpit monitoring, seaboard navigation, quality control, long-distance driving, and agricultural inspection tasks, etc. But having to constantly worry about what you do requires a high amount of energy, even though it seems that women have been and are doing this effortlessly (and unfortunately, innately) for ages.

Also, many psychologists are of the opinion that the impact of chronic stressors are usually ignored and are in reality much more insidious than even the extreme (non-chronic) stress symptoms. There have been studies on gender differences in stress and many studies report that women have been found to have more chronic stress than men. In fact, there are studies that even explore gender specific stressors for women – like violence, sexist discrimination, etc. – all of which can be detrimental to their physical and mental health.

Coming back to the real question – why should we even be doing this? I have to admit that it would be idealistic to think that I can keep my guard down in today’s society (be it in Mumbai, or be it any town in India or even in the world). Personally, I am not willing to take the risk. So what would I prefer? Keeping all those antennae alive and ticking seems like the only option right now. Is it okay? No. It is not OKAY. I just have my hopes set on the fact that education and more awareness among people will help to change the society for better and such crimes against women would eventually stop one day.

Till then, my calculator beeps on.

Adithi Muralidhar currently works in the field of science education research, in Mumbai. Apart from that, she works in areas related to environment and sustainability and also has a keen interest in social issues. 

(Pictures courtesy www.mumbaimirror.com, www.indiatvnews.com. Sketch courtesy Manoj Nair. Adithi has referenced ‘Matud, M.P. (2004). Gender differences in stress and coping styles. Personality and Individual Differences Vol 37(7), pp 1401–1415’ and ‘Warm, J.S., Parasuraman, R., and Matthews, G. (2008). Vigilance Requires Hard Mental Work and Is Stressful. Human Factors, Vol. 50, No. 3, June 2008, pp. 433–441’ for the writing of this story)

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My rape calculator’s always working

A Mumbai woman explains how her mind is on constant auto-alert for signs of sexual pests and even worse, rapists.
by Adithi Muralidhar

Part I of II 

To all my girlfriends, I am sure you will be able to relate to some of the thoughts (if not all) that I have penned down here.

To all my guy friends, this is to give you a vague idea of what runs through the mind of a woman, living in a society such as ours.

Thanks to new age media, nowadays, rapes get reported more often than before. You open the newspaper each morning and you can be guaranteed to come across at least three rape reportings.

Being brought up in a relatively liberal household, I was allowed as a child and a teen to go out for as long as I wanted, stay out late with friends, go to far-away places. These ‘privileges’ came with some rules. But my parents never forbade me from going out.

Also, my parents never told me what I should and shouldn’t wear. They let me judge for myself and as long as I was comfortable with what I was wearing, they did not question my choice of attire. I was lucky that my parents even allowed me out at all, since I know of households (even in the so-called urban educated society) where they do not let their ‘girl’ children (only) have a stay over at a friend’s place, or party, or socialise with the opposite sex.

scared to walk on the streetsWhile I am extremely grateful for having such cool parents, I can’t help but question the need to have rules in the first place. People now are advocating new-age thinking. Previously it was, ‘Don’t get raped’ (meant for girls only) but now, the message is, ‘Don’t rape’ (meant for boys only). This should be based on the fact that, women for generations have been taught at home to not attract attention and invite rape, when in fact men need to be taught to keep their aggression and power-frenzy in control. But is that happening? Are men actually paying heed to this message? Unfortunately statistics show otherwise. Rapes still happen all over the country (and the world). So what does one do to prevent such a crime? Tell your daughters and sisters to not get raped? And so, I feel most of the girls in India have either been brought up in a household where they are downright refused freedom of everything, or given restricted freedom. Getting complete freedom would probably be the rarest of rare cases!

On closer introspection, I realised something else…like several women, I have a ‘Rape Calculator’ at work all the time. This is how it computes things for me:

– I am more comfortable in loose clothes, than in tight fitting ones.

– I tend to hunch, and not keep my back straight when I walk, in order to ‘not attract’ attention to the chest area! Invariably, when travelling, I cover my front with a dupatta, shawl or stole (irrespective of whether it matches my attire or not).

– I look down when I walk, avoiding eye contact with people on the street.

– When I walk on streets and I see a shady person walking in my direction, I cross the road and then cross back again.

– When I walk on main roads or smaller lanes, I do so in the direction opposite to that of the vehicles on that road, so that I can keep an eye on people on bikes/ cars; and to avoid segregated for safetyanyone touching/groping/ attempts.

– When I use public transport like buses, I sit towards the edge of the seat (which is terribly uncomfortable) to avoid the person behind from touching my back with their knee!

– I am paranoid about my shirt/kurta, and constantly check if it rides up (while getting up from any seat, standing in a public place on a windy day etc).

– When I am walking through crowded places (like railway platforms), I walk in front of women, so that my arms are free to be used for ‘frontal defense’.

– When I don’t get a seat in public transport and I have to stand, I look for a spot where my back is towards a woman, and I cover my front with my backpack and my arms gear up as side-defense lines.

– I walk with my elbows jutting out in a crowded place.

– I put on a disgusted look on my face to repulse stares.

– I check the rear view mirror from time to time in an auto, to check if the autorikshawwallah is staring at me.

– I make fake calls to fake friends and loudly tell them my location when I am traveling in an auto alone, either at night or in unknown lanes.

respect women– I think twice before smiling and talking with a man (shopkeeper, autorickshaw driver asking someone for directions, istriwala, watchman) because I don’t want them to misinterpret basic good values and manners.

– I once lied to a cab driver that I was a married woman, as it made me feel safer (I had to do this in Goa, and I observed that he asked fewer questions once he knew I was married).

– I plan my vacations around ‘safe’ travel timings (day-time journeys) and ‘decent’ locations.

– I spend extra cash in order to travel more ‘luxuriously’ (according to some) while in reality I am just avoiding skywalks, subways, foot-over-bridges, shady lanes…and end up travelling by a longer route to my destination, using main road and cabs.

– I am careful about what I talk with other people/neighbours, so that passersby do not hear my personal information (like who is in the house, how many people live in the house etc.)

Finally, I believe that many of us have a ‘rape-calculator’ (I came across this term recently somewhere and I think it is a fantastic term to describe what is happening in a woman’s mind) working in our head. It never runs out of battery and it works during the day and night, when we are sleepy or when we are wide awake.

It involves a complex algorithm that takes into consideration multiple factors like time of the day, what we are wearing, where we are going, the roads that lead to where we are going, what will be our mode of transport, who is our company, what day of the week is it, what occasion it is, etc. And it tells us this is a relatively ‘less dangerous’ outing, we are less likely to get raped, we can go out  today. Also, we tend to make quick impromptu adjustments in the calculations when we take into account the age of cab driver/autorickshaw driver, his mannerisms and body language (as these are factors that you can take into account only when you are out).

Part II: ‘Constant vigilance can kill‘. Look out for the next part of this story tomorrow.

Adithi Muralidhar currently works in the field of science education research, in Mumbai. Apart from that, she works in areas related to environment and sustainability and also has a keen interest in social issues. 

(Picture courtesy newsreporter.com, www.5minute5.com, www.globalpost.com, www.france24.com)

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