Good morning friends
The new metro line from Gundavli to Andheri West via Dahisar East is a boon to us. We can avoid the traffic jams, the bad roads and pollution while travelling by the air conditioned and super clean Metro. As the Metro travels at a higher level, you can get a wonderful view of the city while travelling. Of course, the view majorly consist of buildings, high-rises, interspersed with slums. But from the stations Jogeshwari East to Aarey or Dindoshi, we can see a wonderful lush green carpet of trees. This area, especially around Aarey Road, still boasts of a lot of trees which probably serve as the lungs of the suburbs. However, once you cross Dindoshi, we are back to tall towers, the green jungle giving way to a concrete jungle.
In this patch of the city around Aarey, you can actually feel a positive difference in the air that you’re breathing in. If you’re travelling by an auto early in the morning, before sunrise, then this particular patch is much much cooler than the rest of the suburbs.
As I sat in the Metro, watching the scenery unfold before my eyes, I remembered a car ride many years ago when my son was in the first or second standard. We were caught in a traffic jam on our way to Dahisar from Andheri. As it was obvious that it would take a long time for our journey, I decided to play a game of “Count the trees“ with Satyajit. As it was April and Gulmohars were in blossom, we decided to count the number of Gulmohars on both sides of the highway. The bright red or orange colour of the blossoms made it easy to spot the trees, even from a distance. To my amazement, we counted more than a hundred Gulmohar trees during this journey. A couple of years ago, ( once again in April ) both Satyajit and I remembered this car ride and tried to look for the Gulmohar trees but found to our dismay that the number had dwindled considerably.
We had a similar experience while travelling from Nashik to Saputara many years ago. As it was a long journey, once again, we had spent the time counting the Banyan trees lining both sides of the road. Once again, the number was in hundreds. About 10 years later, when we travelled the road again, the road had been widened, and most of the Banyan trees had been sacrificed during the widening.
These days, we are hearing a lot about the air quality of Mumbai going down remarkably,it seems it’s even worse than the air quality of Delhi. We can actually see the smog in the mornings, all the more striking when you watch it from the Metro. And we also find that the temperatures in the city and suburbs are reaching higher levels every year. I am sure that these adverse changes in my beloved city can be attributed not just to the increasing constructions and the exponential increase in the number of vehicles but also to the drastic reduction in the number of trees.
I do hope that we can change this situation for the better by planting more trees and making changes in the legislation,
Love,
Anjali Bhatawdekar
