Sivan Park is in KK Nagar and was the venue for Nizhal's public walk in October, falling on Gandhi Jayanti.
If you are wondering where it is, take a look at the map:
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We landed up there bright and early, to see one large Sivan statue staring at us!! (I had thought the park was named after some luminary of Madras called Sivan, and did not imagine it was named after the ultimate Sivan!!). The story goes that the park was called MGR Park, and the Sivan statue was put there for some film shooting....and then was subsequently not removed, and it became Sivan Park!! This anecdote was narrated by active Nizhal member Kasiraman, a resident of the area.
The MGR statue outside the park seems to bear testimony to this story. And if you want to see the Sivan statue,
click here.
The "we" included my poor husband coopted as driver, Sumana, Vijay and me. Since this was my first visit to the park, I wanted to ensure that there were atleast a few trees that I could identify!! A quick recce with Sumana. We strolled through the army of morning walkers, who stared at us with curiosity - oddities we must have been, craning our necks to look at canopies while everyone else marched on briskly, either chattering with companions or with a grumpy oh-why-am-I-hear scowl on their faces. Nettilingam, aala maram, arasamaram, nagalingam, neem... all there, nice and large and healthy, so I let out a first sigh of relief.
And then came the mystery tree. Three of them, large and imposing!
Lagerstroemia microcarpa?
So, this is what we looked up to - leaves so far up that my myopic eyes were tested to the full. Peeling bark, could it be Pride of India I wondered.
But then Sumana spotted white flowers and small berries! (Pride of India aka Crepe Myrtle has large lavender/purple flowers.)
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| White flowers |
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| Berries or buds? |
(Back at home, and with the help of flowersofindia.in, I tentatively identified this as
Ben Teak, venthekku in Tamil, a native tree. Am I right? If it is that tree, then this is a Sivan Park highlight.)
The debate was abandoned and we moved on. Copper Pod, Gulmohar, Parklandia, Palm, Neem, Pongam, Pooarasam. OK, not too bad, we can still cope.
We began our walk, (with a good handful of Nizhalites, plus some firsttimers,) next to the Nettilingam, Mast Tree...and the newbies "walked" into the Ashoka "trap", and so I unleashed the no,-this-is-false-ashoka-not-the-realmccoy story, as a chameleon looked on rather dubiously.
The Peepul photo essay
Eucalyptus microtheca?
Another unknown once again with white flowers looking a lot like eucalyptus, but with no characteristic vicks smell!
Could this be the
Coolabah, introduced from Australia?
The idying was done later on, post walk.
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| The thenpuchi maram (Guazuma ulmifolia) revealed a flower, and had lovely fresh leaves, all hairy and ready to collect dust. |
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| Pongamia leaves, completely covered with the characteristic leaf galls. |
And we ended next to the naagalingam, a native of the Amazonian region of South America, but now venerated here!
The tree was in flower and there were a few on the ground as well, that allowed us to examine its astonishing flower structure.
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| Couroupita guianensis |
We wound up with Mr Kasi Vishwanathan of Nizhal Anna Nagar talking about his experiences with the Metro Rail project, and how 24 large trees of Thiruvika park were transplanted, and 23 have survived and taken root again!
This is the cost of development that we as a society do need to factor in. If we chop off these large trees, how long will it take before the new trees grow to these impressive sizes?
"What we are doing to the forests of the world, is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and one another" - MK Gandhi.
One of the younger trees
