Dumping ground now a beautiful park

Shriniwas Joshi

I HAD a chance of going to Kanlog where a few yards ahead of the crematorium on the Dhalli-ISBT road, I saw a beautiful park coming up (See photo). The Deodar forest making the background of the park gives comfort to the eyes. Its undulating surface has been kept as such and that goes with the nearby hills moving up and down gently. Can you believe it? A few months back, the area was the dumping ground of the waste and every passerby used to keep a hanky on his nose to avoid the stink emanating from the dumped material. Today, it is a park on the ground reclaimed from the landfill site and visited cheerfully by many. Immediately the proverb, “What is one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” flashed upon my mind.

The Chief Minister laid the foundation stone of the park on May 1, 2017, and named it Shimla Nature Park Kanlog. And in less than two months, a portion of the park was casting shadows of coming events. The green grass was spread, pansy or viola was in full bloom and saplings of chinar with exotics were growing into trees. Should we not have more native plants than the exotic plants? The question needs an answer from the planners. A budget of Rs 5 crore has been kept for its development.

The total area is estimated to be 14.20 acres in which there will be rows of flowers and foliage, benches for the visitors to rest and gazebos. A gazebo is a pavilion structure, freestanding or attached to a garden wall. It is roofed and open on all sides. Besides adding to the ornamental features of a garden, it provides shade and shelter. On availability of water, it will have fountains and running water cascades, the water will flow down in canals to be recycled and over the canals built designer bridges will represent the hill ambience. The plan shows that it will have a battery of fancy solar lights to wash the park with colourful luminosity and also a parking space for about 50 vehicles.

If it comes up according to the plan, then it is going to be a superb gift to the people of Shimla from the joint coffers of the Shimla Municipal Corporation and the Forest Department. Landfills, all over the world, are among the most notorious pieces of real estate. These are side-effects of modern human life. But landfills don’t have to remain steaming heaps of smelly rubbish. And this is what Shimla Nature Park Kanlog shows. I wish, one day, it shares limelight with several parks which have been raised on the garbage. May I name two in Asia? Sai Tso Wan Recreation Ground, Lam Tin, Hongkong and Pulau Semakau Eco Park, Pulau Semakau, Singapore. My misfortune is that I had not seen the one in Hongkong when I had gone there in the 80s. Was it there then?

There are areas in Shimla Park reserved for sculptures where, today, stones are placed reflecting raw beauty. I suggest that these areas be allotted to the busts of great Indian botanists who are recognized in the world.

I have summed up only three botanists whose work has universal acceptance. There are many botanists and floriculturists in India whose busts should adorn this park. In Shimla, we have statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, Dr YS Parmar, Dr BR Ambedkar and a bust of Lal Bahadur Shastri. The time is ripe to have statues of litterateurs and scientists and academicians instead of politicians. I had seen in Russia that there were statues of Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gorki etc who actually took Russia to beyond its boundaries.

TAILPIECE

Be choosy in listening and reading to save your mind from becoming a garbage bin.

— The writer is a retired bureaucrat