India, May 24 -- In Chandigarh's quieter corners, nature is returning-but some of the city's most meaningful conversations are still waiting to come back. For a regular morning walker in Chandigarh, Sukhna Lake has never been just a water body. It is a habit, a rhythm, almost a ritual that structures the day. Over the years, however, something essential slipped away. The birds and ducks that once animated the lake with colour, movement and sound disappeared after they were culled during the bird flu scare a few years ago. The calm remained, but the life within it thinned out, leaving behind a silence that regular walkers still notice.

In search of both novelty and nature, I recently shifted my morning walk to Dhanas Lake-another natural ...