Delhiwale: Trees of Connaught Place

You must agree that the architectural essence of Connaught Place lies in its hundreds of sturdy white columns that gracefully support the colonial-era colonnades of inner and outer circle. The other significant but overlooked aspect of CP’s essence is its innumerable trees. The area was a forest of babool before the British destroyed it to make a commercial district. Here’s pointing out a few of the very many trees of Connaught Place, merely as a starting point for you to explore the jungle that our historic CP continues to be in its own signature style.
A tree in G-Block is miraculously made of both peepal and banyan. Plus, it is super-gigantic—see right photo. On coming closer, it turns out that what had appeared to be a single tree is actually a pair of peepal and banyan standing next to each other—see left photo. Every evening, palm reader Sanjay sits under the two trees, and awaits customers.
The enormous peepal at D-Block is distinguished for its picture-perfect symmetry. Metaphorically speaking, the foliage is as wide as River Nile and as tall as Qutub Minar. It goes high up in the air, dwarfing the immediate CP skyline. Every evening, vendor Kuldeep sits quietly under the tree with a cloth bag filled with freshly fried samosas, priced at 15 rupees each (a nearby heritage restaurant runs a kiosk facing this tree, which sells samosas for 80 rupees each). Oftentimes, passionate guitarists sit on the metal benches under the tree, crooning Arijit Singh hits.
The grand foliage of the jamun in N-Block forms a virtual roof over the adjacent subway staircase. Every monsoon, the little plaza gets carpeted with the tree’s fallen berries. While the clumps of jamun still attached to the leafy foliage look like purple daubs smeared across a green canvas.
The trunk of the gracious pilkhan at F-Block dramatically splits into a network of long, thick leafy branches.
Each of these branches, in their turn, splits into an even more extensive network of branches, slimmer but as leafy. The pilkhan was planted in 2001 by vendor Kesar, who used to sit under its shade all day long in all seasons, selling sliced guavas. She was claimed by the second wave of the coronavirus.