Park by numbers.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

5 million. This is the number of footfalls Sunder Nursery has accumulated since the day it opened to us Delhiwale six years ago—according to Aga Khan Trust for Culture that created and now manages the park. The milestone was reached late last month. High time to statistically dissect a destination whose many gardens and monuments have become the capital’s capital refuge.

01/12/2018
Date of the park’s opening.

15,000
Total number of park trees. 300 is the number of tree species. 10 of these are so unique to the park—such as Brazilian Ironwood and Satin Leaf— that you won’t see them anywhere else in India. (Why so? Wait for a forthcoming dispatch!)

177
Number of benches in the park. 97 of these are sandstone benches. The remaining 80 are of cast iron, acquired from antique dealers, and are part of the park’s ‘Dedicate a Bench’ programme—1 such bench memorialises late bookseller KD Singh with a Pablo Neruda poem.

150
Number of bird species. In January 2015, an ultramarine flycatcher, super-rare in Delhi, was spotted in the park’s so-called Wilderness Zone.

90
Area of the park in acres.

75
Number of gardeners in the park. This afternoon, 54 of those women and men are at work. They all sportingly agreed to pose for a joint portrait—see photo.

44
Number of flower species. One of which is rose (obviously!), which itself has 20 varieties in the park.

35
Number of butterfly species, ranging from Common Castor to Striped Pierrot.

26
Number of dogs living in the park, fed twice daily.

20
Number of monuments in the park. Sunder Burj, dating from 16th century, is the oldest. 18th century Mughal Pavilion is the youngest. 6 monuments are part of the Humayun Tomb UNESCO World Heritage Site; the emperor’s mausoleum stands beside the park.

14
Number of gardens in the park, including Bagh-e-Bahar, the Flower Valley.

14
In kilometres, the combined length of the park’s walking pathways.

14.
Number of bee species in the park. 3 are honey producing bees. 9 are solitary bees, which means they don’t live in a chatta. The park has created special residences for these loners in the form of dry twig hedges. 1 specie happens to be a desi variety that doesn’t sting—this tiny Indian stingless bee has in fact 50 colonies in the park.

13
Number of water bodies. These include 5 wells, 2 lakes, and 2 swimming pool-sized underground rain water harvesting tanks (over the years, the park’s water table level has risen from 10 meters below the surface to 2 meters). The park’s most striking monument to water has to be the beautifully named Hauz-i-Nilofar. It is Delhi’s only existing Mughal-era lotus pond.

PS: The figures were complied with additional help from author and butterfly scholar Gillian Wright, beekeeper Rakesh Gupta, and landscape architects Yogesh Kapoor and Geeta Wahi Dua.