On the banks of Bengaluru’s Kaikondrahalli lake is an government-aided Kannada-medium school. Renuka High School caters to children from the neighbourhood, and is famous for having produced State-level sports players. That might owe something to the lake: on its banks the children find a rare open area to play kho-kho, kabaddi, pithoo and cricket.
Yes, they have to deal with the occasional snake invading their classrooms, but they also get to munch on jamun and Manila tamarind from the trees on the banks and play Scrabble under the canopy. On Saturdays, the children watch fishermen make their catch, or count the water birds. The water body also has a special place in the school’s collective memory. The school’s Facebook page is full of comments from alumni about Kaikondrahalli lake. There are other visitors to the lake: joggers, dog-walkers, people with their families.
Here, we meet Shantamma*, a resident of Kaikondrahalli village, who tells us stories of the powers of a local lake goddess Yellamma she still worships on the banks of the lake. She remembers the lake from two decades ago when it had wells and fields around it. Today, the landscape has morphed into high-rise apartments and busy roads.
Kaikondrahalli is one of a cluster of three lakes in south-east Bengaluru (the other two being Kasavanahalli lake and Sowle kere) that had turned into cesspools but were restored by the municipality and a local trust, and are now maintained by the Mahadevapura Parisara Samrakshane Mattu Abhrivrudhi Samiti trust. The lakes are now brimming with water and attract over a hundred species of birds. But restoration has also come with rules from the municipality. And there is a fence: the lakes are open to the public only in the mornings and evenings. Villages, who once freely accessed the lake at all times to swim, farm, catch fish and graze cattle, can no longer do so.
Park with rules
A swimming champ from Renuka High School tells us he wished he was allowed to swim here: “I could swim across the entire lake,” he says wistfully.
While the bond between people and lakes is strained, it is certainly not severed. The lakes reflect the importance of urban commons in a growing metro like Bengaluru: they support livelihoods, they bring back memories, they are places of quietude in a restless city. Most of all, they add a lot to the quality of life and kindle a sense of attachment and ownership among the people around them.
Not far from here is Kasavanahalli lake, in a still somewhat ‘rural’ setting, despite the urban expansion around it. It is fenced and gated now, but Sheela, a Kasvanahalli villager, remembers how as a child she and her friends would swim, fish, wash clothes, and harvest leafy vegetables on its banks. “None of this is possible now — the lake has become a park with rules,” she says. The residents of the new apartment complexes around the lake now engage with it: they plant saplings, have environmentalist talks, and have a group to manage the waterbody, says Sheela. As for the villagers, they talk of the nine deities they used to worship at the lake.
Of the three lakes, Sowle kere is perhaps the least visited. As a consequence, it retains a more ‘natural’ look. We meet a family of grazers who migrated from Andhra Pradesh 75 years ago. They tell us they visit the lake every day to graze their cattle. The municipality prohibits their entry, so it’s a constant battle, but the trust helps them access it.
Birds and butterflies
To naturalists, the flora and fauna are a big draw at the ‘wildscaped’ Sowle kere. Many visitors here are familiar with the birds and butterflies, the medicinal plants and trees. The lake was once famous locally for its mud, which was used as a natural shampoo, and as a detergent to wash clothes, we are told. A clump of neem trees brings back memories of home for an evening walker. Migratory birds remind a horticulturalist from Uttarakhand of the Asan Barrage wildlife sanctuary.
Some visitors come to Sowle kere just for the quiet, to meditate or contemplate. We meet a mother who is here with her autistic son. “This lake is a lifeline for parents like me. Special-needs children are often made to feel unwelcome in other parts of the city. Here, he can be himself. I am not told ‘to control’ him like I am in malls,” says Vimala. A young IT professional says he comes here for ‘alone’ time. “It is about being in a place that’s noiseless. Sometime I just stare at the green. It relaxes me.”
But across Bengaluru, lakes face great threats — they have been encroached, privatised, turned into real estate, garbage dumps or receptacles for sewage. Known once as the city of lakes — for the 200 water bodies that used to dot its landscape — Bengaluru’s lakes now hit headlines for foaming up like bubble baths or catching fire from pollution. Yet, it’s still the lakes that make life liveable in crowded Bengaluru. And its residents can’t afford to lose the last of these aquatic urban commons.
(*Some names have been changed.)
The authors are researchers at the Centre for Urban Ecological Sustainability, Azim Premji University.
