<br /><br />There is an ungainly animal that lives across large parts of India. While in reality it is an antelope, Hindus consider it to be a cow. Called the nilgai which translates as 'blue cow' in Hindi, this very mistaken identity has been an eternal saving grace for the Blue bull, known less commonly in scientific parlance as the Boselaphus tragocamelus.<br /><br />While ungainly and with this apparent confusion of identity, the nilgai really is a harmless animal and as with all young ones, their calves look rather cute, specially with their black and white striped socks. Of course the farmers of Haryana, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh would not agree, for the rojh or nilgai that raids their fields at night does considerable damage to standing crops. It has even been classified as vermin in certain parts, and licenses are available for hunting or culling large males.<br /><br />Needless to say, their numbers are not in decline and a nilgai is the first easy sighting when visiting parks such as Sariska and Ranthambhore. Nonetheless, the sighting of a group of wild antelope in an urban setting can be quite thrilling. It is this sight that is available to millions of Delhi residents at a certain cross roads in South Delhi. However, few notice it as they drive from IIT towards Mehrauli, and they either turn left on the Press Enclave road to the Saket malls or turn right to head to the Vasant Kunj malls. For in the new India, how can one survive without the motto of 'give us this day our daily mall!'...?<br /><br />Indeed, Adhchini is where the nilgai herd are centered. Hence, our moniker of the 'Blue Cows of Half sugar' which is the simplistic and totally wrong translation of Adh-chini!<br /><br />As part of the urbanization process, the Qutub Institutional Area was walled off from the adjoining Delhi Ridge forest that stretches from the Qutub Minar and Mehrauli at one end to Vasant Kunj and Mahipalpur at the other end. In between, the forest stretches right up to the ABDP or Aravali Biodiversity Park on the Gurgaon side. This same forest got truncated with the construction of the Ambience, Promenade and Emporio malls on the Vasant Kunj side.<br /><br />One such family of nilgai crossed over to the Adhchini side and subsequently got walled out of the forest. They now exist in a litigated Haryana government plant nursery with barely any grass or other natural food source. They resort to eating plastic, paper and garbage to make up for the lack of sustenance. They end up walking along the busy road that leads to Gurgaon, hoping to find discarded potato chip packets and other such trash. What an absolute urban low these poor antelope have reached, in this messy and cruel urban agglomeration of the New India!<br /><br />
