Life along the water bodies

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Kolkata is, for the most part, built-up and congested, liberally sprinkled with slums - a sea of living rarely relieved by green and open spaces. But there is one side of it, currently the fastest-growing eastern fringe, which is still mostly open and has a flavour of life-amidst-the-water - quintessential Bengal.

And where there is water, there will be birds. This was brought home to me the other day when the person I was speaking to on the phone interrupted himself to ask if the birdsong he was hearing was for real. Yes, I said, we are in east Kolkata, next to the famous wetlands - that is, as much of them that remain.

Plus, our neighbourhood was traditionally called Narkelbagan, the palm orchard. The palm trees are virtually gone in the frenzy of recent development. But a few pockets of green remain, like the stretch next door where trees and wild vegetation live in close embrace and a variety of birds visit every day. Our balcony facing the green has a frequent morning visitor, a dove, who feels safe to take a walk along the railing, and even now, as evening sets in, the koel is busy singing a last few notes before turning in for the day.

The saga of the vanishing wetlands, as also footprints of attempted rescue, are there along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass that forms a spine for rapidly-building-up east Kolkata. Right at the southern end of the bypass, where the Patuli township has come up, resides an important attempt at restoring a water body and some wayward steps.

Benubanachhaya, classically named to evoke the sound of a flute in the shadow of the woods, has a boundary fence and you pay to enter. It is very pleasingly landscaped and along the walkways are permanent posters highlighting environmental factoids and even a primer on acupressure. There is also a convenient platform for anglers.

But there are provisions for boating, too, which must be scaring away the fish which would have otherwise peaceably ambled along and maybe nibbled at the bait. At one end are a couple of old tramcars brought in and artfully decorated to serve as food courts. And there is a fountain that throws up a 90-foot jet and five colourful springs. The park was created to ward off encroachers' shacks and clear the water body of hyacinth. But nature, as can be seen, has been only partially returned. Total peace and quiet does not reign as the green initiative has also created an "aquatic recreation zone".

Traditional rural Bengal, undisturbed by development, is more in evidence in another water body right in front of a corporate hospital a little set back from the bypass. It is really the frontispiece of a vast stretch of water bodies, separated from each other by narrow pathway-divides, stretching right up to the horizon. An ailing person who can see the water bodies from his hospital bed must recover quicker than others who are not so lucky. Here, also, a bit of development has crept in. Picnickers are allowed in by the fishermen's cooperative which is in charge during the day and should you be walking along the pathways early in the morning you will see the litter they have left behind.

India Shining and India Left Behind are posited right opposite each other in another part of the bypass with another waterbody. To the north side of the bypass there has come up a long stretch of colossal apartment blocks that must be the site of a thousand or more apartments. Next door is a large store of a modern retail chain. This is India Shining with its guards at the entrance of gated communities.

Bang opposite, on the other side of the bypass, is a large water body with shacks running cheek-by-jowl all along its banks. They are mostly made of corrugated tin sheets with little bits jutting in above the water that must be serving as toilets. A brick laid pathway running next to the shacks connect them to the outside world. Next to the pathway is a nullah bringing in sewage from the city. Along the pathway are hand pumps for water to drink and wash. The water from these shallow pumps must be getting leachate from the sewer and the water body which takes in the shack dwellers' excreta.

Early in the morning the pathway is also lined by cycle rickshaws parked for the night. So this is where rickshaw-pullers live. Benubanachhaya and the shack-encircled water body are two different worlds, bridged by the rickshaws pulled by the shack-dweller and ridden by the apartment-dwellers.

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