Damdama Lake

Timing decides whether this is worth the drive. The reservoir at Sohna, in the Aravalli hills near Gurugram, is monsoon-fed — a trough at the foot of the hills that fills to between 50 and 70 feet in the rains, sits at about 20 the rest of the year, and dries out altogether in summer. It is not a natural lake: the British dammed it with stone and earth in 1947 to harvest rainwater, and a government renewal scheme is still pending. The setting is the draw, an important biodiversity area on the Northern Aravalli leopard corridor between Sariska and Delhi, with Badkhal Lake and the 10th-century Surajkund reservoir nearby.