Kolkata's Rabindra Sarobar, earlier known as Dhakuria Lakes, has probably never seen better days in a generation or more. Until a few years ago it was declining - slowly getting choked by garbage, both in the water and in the surrounding greens (there are hundreds of trees) that together stretch across 200 acres.
Then two good things happened to it. Some active citizens decided to revive the area, and the Union environment ministry included the Sarobar under its national lake conservation plan. With that came funding. An early citizens' effort returned to shape a small special park within the area called Lily Pool.
In the last few years, the rubbish on the grounds has been regularly taken away and the water cleaned of hyacinth and discarded plastic. With the central funding have come security guards, tasked to enforce a set of new dos and don'ts, and even a bit of gardening.
Then in the last couple of years has come more intensive development. Walkways have been attractively paved, seating space created and dustbins installed. Perhaps the best thing that has happened is, in keeping with the thinking of the Union environment ministry, the shoreline has been propped up by closely embedding narrow wooden logs. This is to stop erosion largely caused by the elegant rowers of the three lakeside clubs, who have become a hallmark of the Sarobar. In the past, bits of the shoreline was propped up by concrete that makes for a dead, lifeless water body like a swimming pool. Logs come from nature and become a part of life in the water.
Among all these good things, there have been two adverse developments. A couple of years ago, musical fountains were installed in a part of the Sarobar, turning it into an amusement park in the evening twice a week. This is not good for the dozens of species of birds who make the Sarobar their home, particularly in winter, and who like to go to sleep in peace and quiet when the sun goes down. The Sarobar is becoming schizophrenic. Its keepers cannot decide what it should be - an amusement park or a nature park.
The second and most recent adverse development is a 10-foot-tall iron fencing, elegant in itself, that has come up along one side of the Sarobar. This goes against the very spirit of a public space that has to be open to all, in letter and spirit. Besides, the fencing will not add to security. Anybody can jump over it, maybe with a little more effort than for the earlier waist-high one. And fences cannot stop littering and destruction by callous visitors.
But ultimately the dissonance the fence creates is deeply subjective. The first time I saw it I felt as if somebody had put the Sarobar in a cage, as in a zoo. The whole idea of returning a bit of the space around us to nature and thereby enriching our lives is to be a bit diffident towards nature, to come to it with a sense that the space belongs to it and you are privileged to come and share. In a zoo, the shots are called by man who has sought to colonise nature.
This sense of outrage on being walled in was expressed by Amartya Sen a few years ago when the Visva-Bharati authorities put a wall around the Ashram area of Santiniketan to prevent encroachment and squatting and ugly shops coming up. The whole point is that if you want to keep the wrong things out, you need law enforcers, not a useless wall. It only destroys the sense of openness and desire to come closer to nature by being amidst trees and grassy stretches.
A similar controversy broke out when there was a proposal a few years ago to do away with the wall that surrounds Lal Bagh, the massive botanical garden in the heart of Bangalore, and put in its place a see-through fence. The garden's government keepers hated the idea and I got hate mail when I wrote in support of it.
Some love to put a wall or at least a fence around whatever they value. It enhances their sense of security, although in practice these territorial markers do nothing to keep out marauders. On the other hand, it is so uplifting to have a view and be able to move about unrestricted in open spaces. This sense of openness and space is chicken soup for the soul.
As for the new fence along the Sarobar (on one whole side there is already an embankment to keep a railway line from tumbling down), there is likely a more practical reason for putting it up. Tenders for contractors (the fencing must cost the government close to a crore) are chicken soup per se for those who issue them.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
