In 1830, June 29 -- Tania Saili Bakshi

By: Ganesh Saili

As we walk past the gates of Lyndale Estate, Prakash Semwal, normally the most level-headed person I have met, asks: 'Have we strayed onto a film set of Jurassic Park?'

He was talking about the ghastly chain-link fence topped with razor wire that encloses the site of the old brewery. No one has spared a thought for the other dwellers of the forests: badgers, barking deer, bears, civet cats, foxes, flying squirrels, ghoral, honey badgers, pheasants, pine martens, porcupines, or even the occasional leopard co-existing with over four hundred species of birds.

On a huge flat loom, the ruins of Bohle's Brewery, which had come up in 1834. The old walls have many stones missing, especia...