Of campus wilderness

Humans and other creatures coexisted amid pristine beauty

The yellow-beaked, doe-eyed mynah took off from the windowsill of my Pune flat and dived nimbly into the gulmohars and rain trees, triggering fond memories of the canopy of rain trees that shaded the road from my house to the department where I worked for 25 years in Mumbai. The riveting beauty of nature inscribed itself all over the campus of the IIT, Powai, spread over 120 acres, 44 km from the din of South Mumbai. Nature expressed itself fully only after the institute landscaped it. An elderly colleague used to say, “Compare it with the barrenness outside.” Birds, reptiles, humans and other creatures coexisted in the middle of pristine beauty. The lakeside was home to migratory birds in winter. Baby crocodiles cockily sunned themselves on the dry lakebed in summer. A lost leopard cub was sighted by hostellers, trying to climb inside. Snakes slithered across the quiet roads, undisturbed by traffic. A dense forest of centuries-old trees stood in the cordoned conservation area.