A Forest in Jaipur Is Still Surviving — Because Kids as Young as 7 Are Fighting for It

Written by Leila Badyari and Khushi Arora

‘Where is Hiraman?’

"Growing up, my father would take me to the zoo. And mind you, I didn’t go for the tigers or cheetahs. I went to see a bird,  a parrot named Hiraman. He could talk. He’d get excited when we came near, hopping, squawking, making all kinds of noises. Then one day, we went and he wasn’t there. The zookeeper told us he had died. I stopped going after that. Years later, while birdwatching in Jaipur’s Dol Ka Badh forest, I spotted an Alexandrine Parakeet. Do you know what it’s called in Hindi? Hiraman."

That memory has never left Shaurya Goyal, a mechatronics engineer by training, who once built robots for a living. Today, even as he continues to work with machines and systems, it's the natural world that stirs him most.

Years later, Shaurya would spot another Hiraman, not in a cage, but in the wild, in a stretch of green at the city’s edge. The Alexandrine Parakeet, long missing from much of Jaipur, was still alive and singing in the ‘Dol Ka Badh’ forest.

A childhood love for nature was now rooted in fierce purpose. Shaurya had found his forest.

From circuits to canopies

Shaurya’s journey isn’t the one you’d expect. A tech innovator by education and profession, he has spent years immersed in the world of machines and automation — a space he continues to work in passionately. But side by side with that fascination was something softer: an unshakeable reverence for the natural world.

“I’ve always been drawn to nature, to things that grow, decay, heal. Forests work like systems too. They’re complex, beautifully coded.”

So when news broke that Dol Ka Badh, one of Jaipur’s last remaining green lungs, was being dug up to make way for new infrastructure, Shaurya couldn’t stay away. What began as heartbreak quickly became resistance.

One night, around 1:30 am, he got a call. A massive peepal tree, sacred to the ecosystem and estimated to be several hundred years old, was being cut.

“That tree had nine stems. Each one is as thick as a bicycle is long. If you placed a Fortuner car around them, it would barely fit. By the time we reached, they had only managed to remove one root and even that root was as thick as the trunk of most trees. It weighed nearly 20 kilos.”

They stopped the cutting that night. But it was only one incident in a much larger pattern of encroachment and quiet destruction.

"If you look at it daily, you don’t notice. But over 15–20 years, you see the damage — like a man slowly balding. Dol Ka Badh is balding because of infrastructure development."

The forest that still holds breath

Most people, when they think of a forest, imagine trees. But Dol Ka Badh holds a far deeper, richer world — one still breathing, barely, under pressure.

Komal Srivastava, a birder and wildlife photographer, has spent years walking its paths. Her work has documented over 80 species of birds here. “Every visit brings something new. Sometimes it’s a species that shouldn’t even be here, but somehow, it has made its home.”

Among the most precious is the Alexandrine Parakeet, now near-threatened across India. “These birds are trapped and sold because they mimic human voices. That’s why you don’t see them in cities anymore,” she says. “But here, they have survived.”

Cuckoos fly in from southern India each summer to breed. Bee-eaters dig tiny burrows in the soil. Golden Orioles flash between the trees. Even the rare Rose Finch has been spotted here.

What lies beneath: Insects and soil

While the branches carry colour and song, Dol Ka Badh’s engine runs below the surface. In 2025, a citizen-led insect survey revealed an astonishing world: beetles, grasshoppers, praying mantises, jewel bugs, butterflies, ants, and spiders — all quietly doing the work of keeping the forest alive.

“Each one has a role — breaking down waste, pollinating flowers, feeding birds. Without them, the whole balance shifts,” says environmentalist Devendra Bhardwaj.

The ground here feels soft. Fallen leaves decompose into rich, fertile soil. Animal droppings from nilgai, peacocks and squirrels fertilise the earth naturally. There are no pesticides, no human interventions.

“When you walk through Dol Ka Badh, you’re walking over years of life layered under your feet,” he adds. 

How the forest keeps Jaipur alive

Jaipur summers are harsh. Temperatures often cross 45°C, and the city’s concrete holds onto the heat. But near Dol Ka Badh, everything shifts. The air is cooler. The sun feels softer.

Forests like these lower temperatures by up to three to four degrees. Their roots hold soil in place, preventing erosion. When it rains, the forest absorbs the water and slowly recharges the city’s aquifers. Its trees capture carbon and release oxygen.

“In the city, rain disappears into drains. Here, the forest keeps it. Even if people don’t see it, they benefit from it.”

In Jaipur, where less than eight percent of the land is forested, Dol Ka Badh matters far more than its acreage.

When people realised what was at stake

For a long time, Dol Ka Badh was simply part of the background. It had always been there. People walked by it, some walked through it. And because it had never asked anything from anyone, few thought much about its future. That changed when news of construction plans reached the people living nearby.

Shaurya remembers the moment clearly. “None of us started out thinking we were environmentalists or activists. We all have our jobs, our families, our routines. But once you hear that parts of the forest might be cleared, you suddenly feel how easily something you’ve always taken for granted can vanish.”

The first instinct was simple: find out what was really there. If no one else had made a record of the forest’s trees, birds, or insects, the people who cared most about it decided they would do it themselves.

They didn’t have official funding or teams of scientists. What they had were neighbours, friends, college students, teachers, photographers, and anyone willing to walk under the sun for hours. Volunteers split into small groups, each taking a section of the forest. They marked every tree they found with chalk, took photographs, and used mobile apps to record the exact location of each one.

Shaurya describes the routine. “One person would handle the tagging and GPS, the other would write down the species and count. We double-checked everything to make sure we didn’t miss or repeat any trees. It was slow work, but it mattered.”

Over 15 and 16 May 2025, teams documented 446 trees in just the sections most directly under threat. The full forest, of course, holds far more. Among the trees counted were Indian Elms, Babool, Neem, Khejri, Rohida, and others — many that take decades to reach the heights they stand at now. 

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“Some of these trees are easily 40-50 years old,” Shaurya says. “And they aren’t just trees. They’re homes. Birds nest here, insects live in the bark, and animals rest in the shade. You cut one, and you don’t just lose wood. You lose everything that depends on it.”

But the work didn’t stop with trees. The team worked alongside birdwatchers and researchers to build full lists of birds, insects, and plant life — uploading them onto open databases like iNaturalist so that the records couldn’t easily be disputed or ignored. Every photo, every location pin, every checklist became part of the forest’s living proof.

Devendra explains why it was necessary. “Once you have proper documentation, it’s no longer a matter of belief or debate. It’s right there. The data speaks for itself.”

The children who carry the forest forward

On weekends, when people gather at Dol Ka Badh for nature walks or meetings, it’s often the youngest ones who arrive first, tugging at their parents’ hands. Some come carrying their sketchbooks, others bring colourful banners they have made at home, filled with drawings of birds, trees, and slogans in shaky handwriting.

Komal smiles when she talks about them. "You can see it in their faces. They aren't here because someone made them come. They want to be here. They want to know the names of the birds, they want to guess which feather belongs to which species. It's curiosity you can't force in a classroom."

One little boy, around seven years old, has become something of a familiar face at the gatherings. “Each time, he shows up with a new poster he has made himself. Once, he even arrived wearing a full peacock costume, his chest puffed up proudly as he marched alongside the adults,” Shaurya laughs as he recalls. 

The sight of him, holding his homemade placard in the front basket of his tiny cycle, has become a symbol of the movement's heart. "The way he prepares for each event — you’d think he was leading the entire rally. His excitement is contagious."

But it's not just the children. The parents, too, have had to make choices. Bringing kids out into the open, away from screens, is not always easy. Mitali Desai, one of the earliest residents to step in for Dol Ka Badh, sees this as one of the quiet victories.

"A lot depends on us, the parents," Mitali says. “If we don’t bring them here, they may never know what this feels like. Once they see it, once they spend time under these trees, they start asking questions at home. And soon, they start teaching us how much it matters."

Mitali’s own daughter grew up with the forest just a short walk from their home. Even though she now studies abroad, the updates continue. "She still calls me to ask, 'Is the forest safe? Are people still coming? Are the birds still there?' That attachment has stayed with her, and it will always stay."

For these children, Dol Ka Badh is not some faraway place discussed in textbooks or news reports. It's part of their growing up. A real, living part of their everyday world. And perhaps that is what makes this forest harder to lose — not just for them, but for everyone watching them learn to care.

What keeps them standing here, day after day

In the beginning, the gatherings were small. A handful of people would show up in the mornings, sitting under the trees, watching the workers arrive with their machines. Some days, it felt like they were trying to hold back something too big with nothing but their own presence.

Mitali has seen many of those mornings. "Some days it was just a few of us. You start to wonder if you're being foolish. But then you remind yourself — if we don’t come, who will?"

As the weeks went on, more people arrived. Friends brought friends. Strangers messaged online asking how they could help. On weekends, college students rode in on cycles. Families came with homemade banners. Over time, what started as a few concerned residents turned into something larger — a community bound by the simple decision not to turn away.

Even now, the pattern continues. On weekdays, twenty or thirty people quietly hold space. On weekends, the numbers swell. At one recent event, nearly a thousand people formed a human chain around the area, holding signs, reading poetry, some simply standing in silence. The message was always the same: this forest matters.

Shaurya says, “The numbers don’t matter as much as the fact that people keep showing up. Some people drive for hours from other cities just to be here. You realise it’s not about convenience. It’s about something much deeper.”

There’s no big organisation behind it. No formal leadership. People come because they feel the pull. Many of them have full-time jobs, children, parents to care for, deadlines to meet. Yet they carve out this time — in the mornings before work, in the evenings after dinner, on weekends when they could be anywhere else.

"You see office workers, retired teachers, school kids, young couples, all standing together," says Mitali. "And every time you see new faces, you feel a little more hope."

Why this forest matters far beyond its borders

At first glance, it might seem like Dol Ka Badh is only Jaipur’s concern — one patch of trees, one small corner of a single city. But the truth is far bigger than that.

Across India, as cities grow, stories like this one repeat themselves. Apartments rise where groves once stood. Roads widen. Flyovers cut through what used to be open spaces. In the rush to build, green spaces often become the first to shrink.

India’s national forest policy says that one-third of the country should be under forest cover. Jaipur sits far behind, at only six to eight percent. In this landscape, every surviving patch, no matter how small or unnoticed, carries weight far beyond its size.

Devendra speaks softly, but his words stay with you. "People think you can cut one forest and plant trees somewhere else. But you can’t replace a tree that’s thirty years old with a sapling. You can’t rebuild what lives inside the branches and roots. You can’t recreate what takes decades to form."

Komal nods as he speaks. "When you cut a tree here, you don’t just lose wood. You lose nests, eggs, insects, soil health, shade, food — an entire chain of life built around that one trunk. It’s all connected. If one part breaks, everything else feels it,” she adds. 

And while the loss is ecological, it’s personal too. For the people who grew up playing under these trees, for the children learning to name birds, for the families who walk these trails on Sunday mornings — this isn’t just land. It’s part of who they are.

What hope still grows here

For years, Dol Ka Badh has blended into the edges of the city. It didn’t ask for attention. People passed by, never thinking much about what was here. But once they stopped and looked, they saw how much life had always been waiting. And once they saw it, they couldn’t walk away.

That’s what keeps bringing people back. Parents bring their kids. Neighbours bring their friends. Some come to walk, some just to sit for a while. Strangers meet, and slowly, it starts to feel like everyone’s part of the same effort.

Shaurya says, “We started because we didn’t want to lose this place. But being here, you realise you’re not just saving trees. You meet people who care like you do. You feel like you’re part of something.”

The forest is still standing. The birds are still calling. New saplings continue to grow. And as long as people keep showing up — even one person at a time — Dol Ka Badh still has a future.

Because sometimes, all it takes to save something is to care. And once you care, you're never standing alone. Somewhere in the branches, maybe a Hiraman still sings.