Ulsoor Lake: This man-made paradise is dying a slow and painful death

BENGALURU: In Bengaluru, which was once the 'land of thousand tanks' brimming with water, the idol of Ganesha was earlier moulded in clay and immersed in tanks. When the waters of the tanks receded, the clay could be re-consolidated from the immersion site for the next year's idol. That is, however, history.

One popular tank for immersion was in Ulsoor, which was eventually considered a lake. Like Anuradha Mathur and Dilip Da Cunha state in their book Deccan Traverses: "Tanks appear as lakes but only at a particular time of the year. However, tanks such as Ulsoor are forced to maintain this appearance throughout the year. It was a tank when Cornwallis's army camped on its higher reaches in March 1791 and when Lt Blakiston built the cantonment in the same area in 1807....Today , it is held as a lake."

The Ulsoor lake is a man-made body. Some say it was one of the many tanks created by Kempe Gowda I in the 16th century and was developed and maintained by successors of the chieftain. The lake in its present form, however, is credited to Lord Bentham Bowring, who was the chief commissioner of the Mysore state between 1862 and 1870.

According to sustainability expert Harini Nagendra, whose book 'Nature in the City' deals with Bengaluru's ecology, Bowring was responsible for "laying the bunds, deepening the tank and expanding the area of the lake to facilitate the barracks around the area". Today, the lake is to the northwest of Halasuru and occupies an area of 123 acres.

Nagendra points out that in ancient British maps, it occupies almost the entire area north of Halasuru. "The topography was planned in a way that the rich British officers stayed right next to the lake while the natives who served them were located downstream near the sewage lines," she says.

Till about the 70s, the lake was considered a blessing for landlocked Bengaluru. Old-timers remember driving in from the Gurudwara side with family and friends and sitting by the shade of the lake's many mayflower trees. Boating and fishing were also a favourite pastime. Today, unfortunately, it is described as a foulsmelling, hyacinth and sewage-infested body that is highly polluted.