How we turned a barren plot outside Chennai into a jungle that is now home to leopards and civets

[Judi Lynn]

Over 20 years, fuelled by ideas and hard work, my husband and I have managed to achieve what we set out to.



Yesterday · 11:30 am
Janaki Lenin

At mid-morning, the furnace-grade heat bounced off the hard clay. I couldn’t see myself living here. My husband, Rom Whitaker, though, was excited. His eyes were not set on the barren and brown rice field but on the scrubby hillocks that bordered it. I couldn’t see what he saw. But I was a dunce from the city. What did I know!

I had to grant one thing – the convenient location. As filmmakers, we flew to work and the airport was less than an hour’s drive away. Rom was the director of the Madras Crocodile Bank that was also within commuting distance. And I was only an hour south of my parents who lived in Chennai city.

We bought five acres of land in 1996 and began building our house. That winter, when the rains came, Rom coordinated a massive tree-planting operation. He had full-grown neem trees uprooted from the Crocodile Bank and planted them around the construction site. The staff were experienced at this, but as I was to discover later, previous efforts had been made along the sandy coast, where they had worked well. After we moved in early 1997, I examined the trees daily for fresh buds. But they seemed to have no such plans. When early summer heat sent its tentacles, I grew anxious. Would we have any shade?

“You cannot tolerate the heat here,” said our neighbours, sensing my discomfort and rubbing it in. “You’ll become black and run away.”

More:
https://scroll.in/magazine/880688/how-we-turned-a-barren-plot-outside-chennai-into-a-jungle-that-is-now-home-to-leopards-and-civets

[hunter]

1. For those curious, Chennai is in India, off the Bay of Bengal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai

I was thinking Central America at first glance, seeing jack rabbits, porcupines, and jaguars. These are the "Old World" versions.

Never thought much how leopards and jaguars might differ...



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar