It is early monsoon in the Sundarbans. A group of schoolchildren leans over the edge of a pond, their eyes wide as dragonflies skim the water’s surface, wings catching the light like shards of glass.

“Look, they’re laying eggs!” one child exclaims, pointing to the ripples. A few steps away, lawyer-turned-conservationist Mantu Hait watches in silence, smiling as the dragonflies begin breeding in India’s first dedicated dragonfly pond.

“This is what I want,” Hait says softly. “For children to see nature not in books, but alive, right in front of them.”

The lawyer who built a forest

Though a lawyer by profession and a resident of Chetla in Kolkata, Mantu Hait is a passionate nature lover and conservationist. Spotting vacant land between Kolkata’s Majerhat and New Alipore stations — long abandoned as a garbage dump and owned by the Kolkata Port Trust — Hait took matters into his own hands. Planting trees there was technically illegal, but he went ahead guerrilla-style anyway.

Hait collected seeds from diverse sources — jamun and boxwood from Alipore Court, along with ashoka, jackfruit, mango, tamarind, guava, and others.

He scattered them across the parched land and planted saplings too. Over a one-kilometre stretch, around 25,000 trees gradually greened the area, turning Kolkata’s wasteland into a desert oasis dubbed “Mantu’s Garden” or “Chetla Forest” by admirers.

Birds, insects, and wildlife soon made it their home. Cyclone Amphan damaged many trees, but Hait continues the restoration effort.

“I realised early on,” he recalls, “that simply planting trees isn’t enough. They need protection, care, and awareness. That’s everyone’s responsibility — students, researchers, and ordinary people.”

Hait avoids government aid to remain independent but collaborates with NGOs and volunteers, spreading his idea of micro-urban afforestation — small rooftop or vacant-plot forests that collectively restore biodiversity.

From guerrilla gardener to “Aranyadev”

His guerrilla gardening earned him nicknames that sound........

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