A rare amalgamation

Industry’s commitment to environment conservation is more than evident at Huzur Gardens, Sembiam, which is a birder’s delight

November 25, 2014 06:56 pm | Updated 06:56 pm IST

Huzur Gardens

Huzur Gardens

“I've often seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!” I know exactly how Alice felt. You can have manufacturing sheds without greenery, but thick forest without manufacturing sheds in an industrial estate? Do you really make pistons and paints here, in Huzur Gardens, I ask estate manager Sivaramamurthy. All eight manufacturing units of Simpson & Co. are in production, he assures me, it's just that every inch of space between them is covered with trees and shrubs. I have been walking in the Huzur Gardens, Sembiam, for nearly an hour. I stopped to look at the huge banyan tree near the gate, wondering how old it was. I climbed the bank of a natural pond to catch the kingfisher and pond heron on my camera. I clicked away at the fuchsia-tinted orchids in full bloom. We strolled alongside a 2000-strong Madurai malli thottam , and through the “social forest” of mango, coconut, tamarind, java plum and rain trees developed for industrial purposes. I walked past rare, exotic, ornamental, edible species of trees big and small, young and mature, listening to Murthy's gentle commentary. “A tree census by Dr. Narasimhan, MCC and Dr. Pauline Deborah, WCC (they helped with the re-foresting) puts the variety of trees at 84 and the total population at 3295,” he says. I can see copper pod, palmyra, tamarind, mast, lead, neem, royal palm and mango dominate the area, while white gulmohar, lucky bean, caper, cannon ball, scholar's, five types of fig and white mangrove stand as if challenging you to identify them.

In the fifties, when the manufacturing units came up, this was mostly scrub with just a few trees, says Sivaramamurthy, a qualified horticulturist. He joined in 1991, and began planting. “I laid the pathways, created lawns, and collected 5,000 saplings of different varieties from the Tamil Nadu Forest Department.” More came from Bengaluru, Yercaud, Hyderabad and Thirumala — wherever he found a plant the gardens didn't have. The number, he's sure, has reached 10,000. You must follow a map to find your way, I tell him. “I know this compound well,” he smiles. “Mine is a mental map.” He is now busy creating a Rainbow Garden, whose members “will be the pride of this place. We already have the parrot flower, and lotuses in five colours, including green.”

This urban forest has a “no-cut” policy — no branch, tree, bush or shrub will face the chain-saw, or even the simple garden shears. Everything is allowed to grow, unchecked. The unruly grass on the pond bunds are left for woodland birds to nest. Even a dead tree fits beautifully into the landscape. Water is no problem, says Murthy. The two natural ponds act as rain harvesting systems. All rainwater is channelled into the ponds, with only the run-off leaving the campus. Dry months are managed with water from 12 wells. Industrial water is cleaned and recycled for watering plants. It is my turn to surprise him. “You have a Stonehenge-type structure here, right?” One of the two non-industrial constructions, this is a semi-circular sit-out with columns, roof and seats designed by architect Sujatha Shankar. We take a stone path to reach the artefact tucked away in a spot overlooking a large lotus pond. “We had white granite stones left over at a building site. In 1993, the chairman “invited the architect to fashion a place surrounded by trees with a view of the water – not a brick of the building should be visible.” I can't resist posing for a shot — it's pure nature, pure green. I return to the gate high on O2, wondering if the nature-writers, bird-watchers and school children who visit the gardens realise the temperature here is at least two degrees lower than on the traffic-choked road outside.

So, why Huzur? The answer is on a Tafe Cafe page, written by V. R. Raja. When TAFE’s founder S. Anantharamakrishnan purchased the Huzur Gardens five decades ago, it had a monument. As requested by the previous owner, the memorial was preserved, and the name stayed on. The small building (at the entrance of Shardlow India), the surrounding garden and the fish pond maintained by the company “never fail to attract people passing by.”

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