A webpost for Snehal Mantri

Dear Ms Snehal Mantri,
Rahul (D-1204) and I (D-901)  took a walk around  Mantri complex last evening, talking trees. We are  aware of your concern for trees. As you put it, in The Hindu (Property Plus Chennai), dated Jan.12,2008,  When MDPL took over the land on OMR at Chennai, the entire area looked so green we had second thoughts about building Mantri Synergy there.
The Hindu report said, "Mantri Developers (MDPL) transplanted an entire grove of trees scattered through their site on the OMR, to the periphery of the site".

Our Sunday walk - Rahul's and mine - was to get an idea of the number of trees that are still standing . By your own account, Ms Mantri, the tree count when your company took over was 24 mango, 140 teak, and 165 coconut trees.

I'm sure,  Ms Mantri,  you would be just as mad as I was when you see this patch (photo) where, not many weeks ago,  stood three coconut trees in a row.. Mantri's slaughtered them to pave way for car-park space. You can't bring back the trees they killed. But Mantri's need to be made accountable. Could consider compensating us for the loss of trees on our campus.

This is the lone mango that has survived  a grove of 24 mango trees Mantri's inherited from previous landowners. To celebrate the lone mango we request Mantri's to do a spot of landscaping around the tree,  put in a couple of benches and a picnic table, so that retires seniors such as myself can make it a daytime hangout for gupshap. In the evening the place can double up as as chaat/samosa  corner, and,  possibly, Avin milk parlour. Our children at Mantri's love flavoured milk.

Rahul and I walked past this well preserved green patch around 'Wish Well'. I, however, wish our landscape architect Mr Sekhar James had listened to our plea for planting tulsi as a hedge. We could have also done with herbal plants for the well being of residents.
It might interest you to learn that we treat plants as people -  have given them  names  - Nityadhya (planted by Nitya and Adhya on Children's Day), Sidharth and Nikhil (named after my grandsons),  Aadit Chakraborti (the first child born at Mantri's) NASA Srinivas (schoolboy who did internship at the US Space center). We have saplings named Nambiar (first Mantri resident) and Ujjal (who plays Santa at our Christmas). The next time you visit us, we would plant a sapling named after Snehal Mantri.

The last time you were at Mantri Synergy they wouldn't have taken you to this spot near  the tennis court ,  where the row of  transplanted teak includes these two with only their stumps standing. And then, near STP, they covered the roots of two teak with cement concrete, leaving the trees to suffocate and starve themselves to death.

We blogged about this , took it up personally,  more than once,  and eventually threatened  direct action before Mantri project team decided to  dig up breathing space around the teaks you see in the photo. We are now on damage control mode;  and a couple of tree-friendly security men have voluteered to nurish the teaks back to health.
Must thank Mr D Venkatesan (A-209) who sent us the link to The Hindu report carrying Ms. Snehal Mantri's statement.