Feeding diaries, contd: dogs and nilgai in the Indian Garden Park

I have lived in Saket for 33 years, but it took a lockdown-driven crisis for me to visit the Indian Garden Park (just 300-400 metres from my house) for the first time. Eleven acres of forest land, not too well maintained (which is of course the case for many such spaces in Delhi) but good for long walks, and some interesting terrain: sloping paths, little ruins, sudden inclines and gullies (this area was originally part of a fort).

 

For the first month of the lockdown, a resident named Rohit Chakrabarti began going to the park every day with heaps of food for the 30-odd dogs trapped inside. In the past few weeks, a few others have been helping out; and with the help of Maneka Gandhi’s team, the main gate has now been opened for designated feeders coming at specified times. 

I am not looking to develop regular bonds with new groups of dogs outside the many I already know and feed outside two flats in Saket (and on the route between those flats), but it was nice to get some feeding done yesterday. Not so nice to see that some idiotic youngsters have made a habit of breaking the clay bowls in which water is left for the animals. And not so good to hear about the dozens of pups who have died of starvation/dehydration/parvo here in recent times, despite the feeders’ efforts. (But that is one of the inevitable sideshows of these times; on my walk this morning, I saw a large monkey lying dead near a parked car.)


There are nilgai in the Indian Garden Park too; in the video here, you can see Rohit feeding one. Shy animals, as you might know, but extreme hunger overcomes that after a few days. 

Anyone here who lives in the vicinity of Saket/Sainik Farms/Saidulajab and feels like coming across one day with food for the dogs, let me know. It takes around an hour, and it provides some good exercise. (During the last two months, I have averaged around 12-13K steps per day, but I crossed 20K steps yesterday thanks to the park visit – and wore out my last decent pair of shoes.)