Ahmedabad residential neighbourhood ‘freezes’ wild leopard moment in mural

IN JULY this year, a leopard strayed into a posh gated society in the Ghuma area of Ahmedabad city – keeping the neighbourhood on edge for a week. The otherwise quiet residential community, of mostly business families, suddenly found itself in the spotlight. Nearly four months later, Serendeep Mansions has decided to etch the memory of the “rare incident” in a wall mural.

The fibre mural, showing a leopard crawling into the premises, has been installed at the same spot on a wall where the big cat was seen in footage of the surveillance cameras of the society around 2 am on July 20. Back then, a video of the leopard jumping over the boundary wall and crossing lanes of the society surfaced on social media and was widely viewed. The forest department swung into action with multiple teams and deployed thermal drones to rescue the big cat that had vanished after spending a few minutes inside the upscale neighbourhood.

The leopard left the society premises in just seven minutes to exit into a vacant plot across the road. The plot had thick babool (prosopis juliflora) trees.

The forest department continued its search for the leopard in the surrounding areas, installing around five cages, for many days. However, it could not be rescued and is believed to have returned to its natural habitat.

President of the society’s resident welfare association (RWA), Gaurang Shah said, “We installed this wall mural of the leopard for two reasons. For Ahmedabad’s city life, it was a rare incident for a leopard to stray into a society. Everybody in the society was terrified by the fact. But later, we wanted to make that date and moment memorable for all, forever.”

“It was also to make it an iconic memory since our society’s name had gone viral and it became famous because of that leopard,” Shah told The Indian Express.

Serendeep Mansions is situated on VIP Road in Ghuma in the southwest part of Ahmedabad city. It is a housing society comprising 105 individual bungalows, the sizes of which vary from 350 square yards to 1,500 square yards.

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According to Shah, he proposed the idea to the society to have something to make the memory of the leopard permanent. And eventually, the idea of having a wall mural at the same spot where the leopard was spotted was accepted by all.
Pranav Pandya, a resident of the society, recalled that when the leopard was spotted in the society and spent several minutes there, people panicked.

“Later on, everybody regrouped and accepted that this could happen. Leopard is a shy animal and (people accepted that) we have to be careful,” said Pandya, who is a co-founder and chairman of a software company in Ahmedabad.

“The moment of the leopard’s entry into the society premises was captured on CCTV. And we (society residents) happily decided to replicate that moment in the mural,” said Pandya.

The society hired a professional wall artist, Paneri Shah, from Ahmedabad to create the mural near the club house. Paneri said that while the leopard had strayed into the society, the project made “it stay” there forever.

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She elaborated on the process of making the mural that included sculpting the leopard in clay structure with various details like its muscles etc. designed by hand, making its mould and then cast the final structure in fibre.

“We have installed it at the same spot and position where the leopard was spotted. The mural has been made with fibre so that it becomes strong, lightweight and is durable outdoors for years,” Paneri added.

According to Paneri, before the spotting of the leopard, discussions were on to have wall art on the same wall.

“But while we were thinking about different options, the leopard was spotted on the same wall and the entire society was taken over by the forest department and our work halted. Later on, when things resumed, we met again and then the thought came that we should have (art work) on the leopard itself. And we made it at the same spot from where it had jumped (from the wall)…”

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Gujarat has the second highest leopard population in the country and 2,274 of them were recorded in the previous census in 2023.