City of Lakes
Bengaluru wasn’t always “Silicon Valley”. Earlier in its history it was known as the City of Lakes, or India’s Garden City. There are no rivers nearby, and the lakes are a human creation: most were constructed in the sixteenth century by the city’s founder, Kempe Gowda, and expanded throughout the following centuries as later rulers and then the British administration continued to develop the lake system.
The lakes made Bengaluru a city of extraordinary biodiversity. They teemed with fish, including carp and tilapia. Freshwater turtles and frogs sang in the evenings; and the skies were full of kingfishers, herons, brahminy kites, weaver birds, and many more.
Bangalore was a city of exceptional beauty thanks to the lakes, and their practical value was even greater. Farmers always had enough water to irrigate their fields, and generations of fishermen have fed the city with their fresh catch. The whole city benefitted from clean drinking water, and washermen and women were always to be found at the Dhobi Ghats. The lakes even had a favourable influence on the city’s microclimate, and helped replenish the groundwater and drinking wells.
It was a huge technological achievement for the sixteenth century. Yet now, nearly five hundred years later, it has been almost completely destroyed. Lakes are the life blood of Bengaluru, and without them it may not survive.