One of my friends recently moved to Maidan Garhi, an urban village in South Delhi. Since then, I have been visiting him occasionally. On my first day there, while walking along the busy IGNOU Road, I overheard someone say, “That way leads to the johad (pond)". The remark caught my attention. A pond? Here, in the middle of such dense settlement? It piqued my interest. What kind of birds would be there? Do people use it? How does it smell? And how had a pond survived amid the dense settlements and constant expansion of the city?A few days later, I was travelling to the metro station in an autorickshaw with a friend when the driver took a different route to avoid the traffic. That was when I got my first physical glimpse of Madudi Johad, which I thought was Maidan Garhi Lake.Old pipal (Ficus religiosa) trees stood around the water body, while people sat along its concrete embankment. But before I could take in much else, I caught a strong whiff of sewage mixed into the water.Satellite imagery showing Madudi Johad (outlined in white) and the adjacent waterbody (outlined in yellow), which formed through the accumulation of sewage water.When I later searched for information about Madudi Johad, I found that much of what I encountered online reduced the pond to its association with a murder case. The association is certainly part of its history, but I found myself wondering: what else happened here? 'Pulled the Dead Fish Out by Hand': Pollution is Threatening Kashmir's SpringsBeneath the Surface of Pollution and SewageIn the first few visits, it looked nothing more than a typical neglected urban waterbody to me. Sewage drains emptied directly into the pond, with garbage accumulated in several places. Yet, the pond was far from lifeless. Despite its pollution, it supports a surprising diversity of life.Municipal drain opening into the pond. The green algae on the right is actually an indicator of eutrophication associated with sewage inputs. I recorded 22 bird species in and around the waterbody. One day, I was surprised to see a pair of painted snipes. It was the first time I had ever seen snipes. That evening, I also noticed what appeared to be a grebe with two heads. When I focused my binoculars, I realised what I was actually seeing: an adult grebe carrying its chicks on its back. Then, I watched a sub-adult monkey swim across the breadth of the other water body immediately beside Madudi Johad.A Hornbill Named 'Mausi' and the Strange New Lives of Urban Birds in Delhi'Still a Johad for Us' The pond till date is an epicentre of human-nature interactions. People walked along its edge. Children played beside the water. Men sat beneath the old trees. In the evenings, married couples, children, and elderly residents came to walk, talk, or simply sit near the pond. On one occasion, as I walked around the boundary, I saw two women and three children lying on a small outgrowth of land within the pond. Children gathered along the shore, throwing stones into the water. During one of Delhi's skin-searing afternoons, people sat beneath the trees, seeking relief from the heat. Bhanu, who comes from Bihar, said, “I work in a kothi (bunglow), I cook food, and whenever I get time, I come here to sit and relax.” It is curious that, given the sharp smell of sewage, people still come here to relax. Ram Singh said:“Well, the pond is dirty but, in this city, open spaces are limited and johad offers what is not there. So, people come here to walk, sit, play, talk or just watch the water.”A white-breasted waterhen.Painted snipes; and buffaloes, egrets, and spot-billed ducks with their chicks.For the people of Maidan Garhi village, its history went much deeper. Monu, now in his late thirties, has lived in the village since childhood. He remembers Madudi Johad from a very different time.Monu“Probably around 14 years ago, I used to swim there. But the pond has swallowed many people. There is something inside the pond, some spirit or something. Ever since I felt that I was being pulled inside the pond, I left swimming in the pond altogether.”Hauz Rani to Tughlaqabad: How South Delhi’s Urban Villages Became Death TrapsA generation older than Monu revealed another story. Seventy three-year-old Raghu Nath Singh told me, “Some 40 years ago, people used to grow chestnuts here, and there was fishing to a certain extent. The pond was quite small, and rain was the only source of water. Back then, the water was fresh, and people directly drank from the pond, as it was labour-intensive to draw water from the well, which was 80 feet deep at that time in this area. The pond that you see now was less than one-third the size of what it is today. The other part was actually agricultural fields where people grew jowar and bajra.""It was so clean that after coming from school, we directly came here and swam in it," he added. Raghu Nath Singh"As urbanisation took over, the sewage system was provided and connected to the pond. Now, household waste directly empties into it. But it is still a johad for us.”My conversations with the Dilli Dehat team, which documents rural Delhi, made me think about Madudi Johad in a broader context. I asked Puneet, the project's founder, a straightforward question: Madudi Johad restoration or infrastructural development? “If I am forced to choose, I would choose conservation of the johad,” he said. “But I also think the question itself shows our planning failure. Why should ecology and infrastructural development be made enemies?” Gagandeep, the project's co-founder, expressed a similar view. According to him, “The future challenge is ecological. A healthy local economy can also be developed around the johad; in fact, it should be.”Puneet, who comes from Devli village, later sent me photographs of ponds around his village. I opened WhatsApp expecting to see images of waterbodies. Instead, I saw playgrounds, construction, and other public infrastructure. I asked him whether he had accidentally sent me the wrong photographs. He had not. These, he explained, were places where ponds had existed during his childhood. Madudi Johad, by comparison, has survived. But survival is not the same as protection.Raghu Nath Singh and Ram in conversation with their friends.An elderly resident walking with his grandchildren.Delhi Elections Kept Yamuna in Focus For A While – What Now?Despite the Neglect, Life PersistsThe pond remains neglected and in a bureaucratic vacuum, with sewage entering through various drains and garbage accumulating within it. It falls under the jurisdiction of the South Division of the Forest Department, yet its continued existence seems to depend as much on its persistence as a waterbody—and on the people who continue to use it—as on any formal protection. And then there is the life that has persisted alongside this neglect.Sewage flows into it, but so do ducks and grebes. Garbage accumulates in the water, while dragonflies hover above it. People come to walk beside it, children play around it, and families return to it during religious festivals. Older residents remember swimming in its waters, while younger generations encounter it as a recreational space. Its story is, therefore, not only about degradation but about persistence.Madudi Johad shows this clearly. A father teaching his child to skip stones and ducks teaching their young to swim—all of these things are part of the pond's life.More Than a WaterbodyMadudi Johad is a culturally rich waterbody in which urban ecologies play out at the intersection of urban fluids and the power of nature. Here, humans living in dense human settlements find refuge from living in the city. Perhaps it gives them some sense of joy and peace.As the urban waste interacts with the wilderness, it shows a variety of colours of novelty that require our appreciation and attention.Now, as I return to that first overheard sentence, “udhar se johad hai,” I think there is something significant in its simplicity. There is a pond over there. And despite everything that has happened to it, to the people living here, it is still a pond that offers a sliver of nature in the middle of the urban jungle.(Nirjesh is an independent researcher and writer based in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh. His work focuses on urban biodiversity, human–nature interactions, and neglected spaces in cities.)Ecological Restoration Done Right: Can Urban Forests Save Delhi’s Future?