Aarey Forest

This guide to Aarey Forest in Mumbai opens just after midnight on October 4, 2019, when chainsaws started up under a police order banning assembly, and word spread fast enough that Mumbaikars rushed the gates before dawn. It traces the roughly two thousand acres of jungle set aside in 1949, home to leopards and newly discovered spider and gecko species, and the metro rail depot that required clearing thousands of trees. You'll hear about the arrests that night and the legal fight that followed. Come early morning if you want a chance of seeing a leopard's tracks.