The Year That Was - PNLIT Highlights of 2018

The transition from one day to another is, well, as predictable as the marching of time. And yet, the shift from 31st Dec. to 1st Jan has something magical about it. It spells new hope, a fresh beginning. We hope our resolutions for the new year will bear fruit and wish that yours would come true as well. 

Here's a quick flashback on our highs and lows of 2018. 

Jan: T.S.Srinivasa’s “Discover Garden Climbers” was released by naturalist Vijay Thiruvady followed by an absorbing discussion on climbers, shrubs, grasses and more in a lively Q & A. Mr. Thiruvady and Mr. Srinivasa inaugurated the naming of the trees in our lake by hanging a board on a Badminton Ball (Parkia biglandulosa) and a Big-leaf Mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla).  We are putting up the name boards on other species. 

Srinivasa and Thiruvady, Jan 2018

Feb: The northern side entrance to the lake was finally made secure with a fence and gates. A grant from VMWare enabled us to undertake this installation which had been pending since 2009 when BBMP marked the boundary of the lake. 

Mar: Heavy pre-monsoon rain on the 15th led to sewage gushing into the lake from three sources. BWSSB did stop the inflow but by then the quantum of sewage was too high and the fish began to die. By the end of the week, almost all of the fish were gone. It was a traumatic experience which made us to look into aerating the water. This has become vital because the problem of sewage continues if sporadically. We have taken this up with the Chairman, BWSSB and hope they will find a permanent solution to overflowing underground drains polluting our lake. 

Fish kill, Mar 2018

Our morale received a boost with getting CSR fund from Axis Bank to meet our operational expenses for 2018-19. Such a relief! 

Saahas, our new partner to manage the waste on the lake premises and in the surroundings, began their sensitisation programme and dry waste collection. 

Apr:   Our gardeners laid pipes from the valve chambers along the walking track to water the hedge and plants on the revetment. We used the last of a grant from Deloitte Shared Services India Pvt. Ltd. given in 2015-16 to lay this pipeline and procure ground cover plants for the slope.

Watering line, Apr 2018

May: Our lake is often mistaken for its namesake in Yelahanka or with Sarakki Lake. To end this confusion we added "Puttakere," as it used to be referred to earlier. A large sized board proudly announcing "Puttenahalli Puttakere" was put up at the northern side entrance.

Name board, May 2018

June: We revived the Family Gardening day. Held on the 1st Saturday of the month, adults and children have been working with great enthusiasm. It is open to everyone. Please bring your family too!

Family gardening, June 2018 onwards

PNLIT gardener Jayanna fashioned a fountain aerator by extending the pipeline down the slope into a perforated circular tube resting on a floating platform frame. It works well. Our gardeners are enthused to innovate more!

Jayanna's fountain, Jun 2018

July: Another different event that was greatly appreciated - Yellamma and Other Stories: Stories and musical conversations on Goddess Yellamma. Held in collaboration with the Urban Folk Project, an initiative to archive folk art forms in Karnataka. 

Urban Folk Project event, Jul 2018

Aug.: Led by Mr. Sridhar Pabbisetty of the Namma Bengaluru Foundation, a team of 20 Indian Economic Service officers from New Delhi visited the lake. 

Sept.: In a joint exercise with our knowledge partner, Earthwatch Institute India, part of an international environmental organisation, a Sustainability Training Programme was held for employees of HSBC. Scientists from IISc. conducted the programme. 

We signed an agreement with SMS Labs Services Pvt Ltd. to monitor the quality of the water on a monthly basis. Our heartfelt gratitude to the BMS College of Engineering who had been testing the water in their lab since June 2016. With several independent researchers and organisations coming over to collect samples and conduct their own tests, we felt it was necessary to have our own benchmark. SMS Labs Services Pvt Ltd. is an NABL certified laboratory. 

Oct.: One of our residents, Mr. Rakesh Kasba did a trial run of a self-designed "Duckweed Extractor."  With the duckweed greatly reduced in the lake, we need to explore whether it can be used to remove any other floating waste. 

A video series titled Eco-India by Scroll.in went live. The first episode on Bengaluru lakes includes ours. At the time of writing, it has been viewed 2,50,693 times! 

Nov.: Continuing our effort to aerate the water, we placed an order for a fountain with Alpha Powers, Coimbatore using a part of the Axis Bank grant. Special thanks to Mr. Raghavendra Shanbhag, a regular visitor to the lake for his help with this project. 

Our Children's Day celebration was made memorable by young singer, Anjana Padmanabhan, winner of Indian Idol Jr. Season One and a drum jam led by Ashirwad Achrekar and his 14 year old son, Arnav.  

Children's Day, Nov 2018

Earthwatch Institute India brought out a beautiful coffee table brochure on the Puttenahalli Lake revival story 

Dec. PNLIT Chairperson, Usha Rajagopalan was invited to the International Water Management Institute (IWMI)-Tata Partners’ Meet on 'Building Climate Resilience for Doubling Farmers Income: Innovations in Land, Water, Energy and Ecosystems' held at Anand from 4th to 6th. She gave the Keynote address at a session on 'Warriors for India's Urban Lakes.'  In her speech, Usha had highlighted the assistance PNLIT received from BBMP (Lakes), other government agencies, our CSR partners and from the neighbourhood. With your continued support, we will reach more milestones in 2019.

Striated Heron, Dec 2018

Warmest greetings to you and your family from all of us at PNLIT!

The PNLIT Team

Photo credits: PNLIT Shutterbugs

Anjana and Arnav bring out the "child" in all of us

Those of you who missed the Children's Day Celebration at the Puttenahalli Lake on 17th Nov. really did miss something! Anjana Padmanabhan, the winner of Indian Idol Jr. 2013 is a pleasure to listen to. What a voice, what singing! She is a professional performer at this young age! 

Anjana (Pic: Jaishree)

The drum jam led by Ashirwad Achrekar and his 14 year old son, Arnav, was packed with energy. And boy! Did the audience revel in it!

Arnav and Ashirwad (Pic: Jaishree)

What was particularly heartwarming to us was the number of new faces in the audience. It seemed that the community was coming together to celebrate children's day at the lake. 

The audience (Pic: Jaishree)

Our sincere thanks to Anjana, Arnav and Ashirwad, and to Jaishree Govind and S.K. Srinivas who took the photographs and videos. 

Here are two reports on the event from our volunteers. 

*********************

From N. Raj

"Saturday Evening ...Gazebo of Puttenahalli lake tucked amidst concrete jungle of the city.. people of all age groups having gala time for the wonderful music so much that all the living creatures resonated with lots of joy.. the flora and fauna danced to the tunes of the music .. 

Age is just a number as everyone were dancing to the tune.. (a few dance through their heart)

It had singing to dancing to drumjam to keep up the fun . The photographers would have had a gala time as they didn't to say 'say cheese" as almost everyone was smiling and joyful to their heart content!!" 

Drumming (Pic: SK Srinivas)

*********************

From: Nandhini Sriraaman 

Where Melody embraced Rhythm

It was an absolutely thrilling children's day celebration at the lake filled with high energy performances and participation from children of all ages.  It was a good turnout with more than 100 people turning up. The performers for the day were Anjana Padmanabhan and Ashirwad accompanied by his son, Arnav. 

As always with a PNLIT programme, it started on time with the first Indian Idol Junior winner,  Anjana Padmanabhan taking the viewers on an amazing Bollywood musical journey that started off with a beautiful melody from Taare zameen par.  The journey traversed through AR Rahman's first song 'Choti si aasha' to 'Nannare' to 'Nagada sang dhol', drawing the kids and adults to shake their legs to these peppy numbers and twisting to 'zoobi doobi'. Anjana also managed to keep the audience engaged with a Sing-along medley of famous Bollywood songs from yesteryears for the young at heart.

Anjana (Pic extracted from Jaishree's video)

Both Anjana and Ashirwad shared their musical journey motivating the participants. Ashirwad then performed on the Djembe while his son played the drums. This was a spontaneous drum jam that kept all the viewers tap their feet to the rhythm.

It was dusk when Anjana started Round 2 of her performances with a few more Bollywood numbers with Bum bum bole from Taare zameen par being the finale. She brought so much energy to the song that kids and elders formed a long train, came down and danced their way back between the audience. There was a lot of joy with everyone displaying the widest smiles they could have and just enjoying the moment.

Train (Pic: extracted from Jaishree's video) 

The whole lake came to life when the most awaited part of the event, the Drum Circle was formed with more that 50 djembes, tambourines and sticks all of them following Ashirwad's instructions playing in the same rhythm. The group was filled with high level of energies keeping up with the beats. The sounds of all the instruments were reverberating and resonating as the sky turned dark. The children couldn't have enough if it. The simple change of pace and variations with so many different activities kept the kids completely engaged and attentive throughout, thanks to Ashirwad. 

Drumming (Pic: SK Srinivas)

Overall, an evening well spent at the lovely Puttenahalli Lake bringing in a lot of life and energy a perfect way to celebrate Children's Day! 

Photos taken by S.K. Srinivas https://photos.app.goo.gl/qkxMeoSueEPWQZdc7

Photos taken by Jaishree Govind https://photos.app.goo.gl/zhb4Db6zDtdHbB9R9

Video taken by Jaishree Govind 

Anjana video 

Arnav and Ashirwad (Drum Jam) video

PNLIT celebrates Children's Day on 17th Nov 4-6 p.m.

Celebrate Childrens Day with Indian Idol Junior Anjana Padmanabhan & Drum Circle Facilitator Ashirwad

17th Nov 2018, 4 p.m - 6 p.m.

Gazebo, Puttenahalli Lake

All are welcome

Kindly assemble by 3:45 p.m.

For registering your name, send an email to 
Sapana (sapana_rawat@yahoo.com) or 
Divya (divyadshetty@hotmail.com).

If you have your own percussion instruments then do bring them for the Drum Circle.



About the artists:

Anjana Padmanabhan (15 years) began to learn singing at the age of 7 and when she was 10, won the title of Indian Idol Junior, Season 1.  Her repertoire ranges from Hindustani, Carnatic to light music. This class 10 student resides in our neighbourhood, at Brigade Gardenia. A much in demand performer will be singing at our lake for the first time.

Ashirwad is an engineer by profession and musician at heart. He has been teaching tabla/djembe since last 6years. He is also a Life-Coach, a Family Counsellor and a Drum Circle facilitator! He will be leading the Drum Circle during this event.
Know more about Drum Circle -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drum_circle

Cheers,

Sapana

PNLIT Event Co-ordinator

Report on the story telling at the lake on 12th Nov 2016

PNLIT celebrated Children's Day on Saturday, 12th November by inviting Ms Lavanya Prasad, professional story teller and founder of TALEscope to reach out to our children through the medium of stories at the lake.  Around 30 children attended this event. A special invitee was Ms Ailbhe Murphy, from Ireland, studying at the Resilience Centre, Stockholm. Here's her report on the story telling. 

On The Story Telling at Puttenahalli Lake

By Ailbhe Murphy

For the last month I have been traveling around Bangalore City visiting lakes that are being maintained and protected by local resident groups.  

I have come to understand the people in these groups as active "place-makers", who through their dedication and imagination are instilling new meanings into the lakes they care for. Lakes, which not so long ago, were on the brink of disappearing, on the verge of becoming places void of meaning.

When PNLIT informed me that they would be hosting a storytelling event at Puttenahalli lake I immediately said I wanted to attend. I saw the event as an example of innovative place-making – a beautiful idea to make the lake known as a place for sharing stories. 

As Jonathan Gottschall, author of "The storytelling animal: How stories make us human" once said: "The stories we consume shape us profoundly! They shape our attitudes, our beliefs and our behaviours."

How wonderful then that the 30 odd children, who attended last Saturday's event at the lake, got the opportunity to consume tales about water and the activities and folklore that have sprung from our dependence on it.    

The first tale we heard was an old village story from Madhya Pradesh. In the story the village was described as a place where everyone could sing beautifully and where songs were inspired by the sounds of water being collected from wells, clothes being washed on the banks of lakes, and cattle bells clanging when cows came to bath.   

By weaving interactive songs and dances into the narrative the storyteller Lavanya Prasad not only had the kids listening but also ON THEIR FEET and SINGING.  It was gorgeous to see all the children playfully embody the village characters, dancing with imaginary water jugs on their heads and enthusiastically slapping imaginary cloths on the ground.  Many adults present couldn't help themselves from clapping and singing along too. 

For the second story Lavanya transported us to ancient China and told us the myth about a cloud breathing dragon that brought rain to the people. Apparently his cloud breathing powers were thanks to a magic pearl that he kept in his throat!

One day, however, the dragon loses the pearl and it is found by a shepherd boy while herding his sheep. When the boy brings the pearl back to his town the precious item brings out the greed of his town's people. To stop everyone from fighting over it the boy decides to swallow the pearl himself. Once it is inside him it works it's magic again, transforming him into a new cloud breathing dragon that swoops off into the sky.  As a dragon the shepherd boy continues to bring rain to China, filling its lakes and rivers.      

At the end of this story Lavanya brought the group back to their surroundings by concluding that, "Maybe such a myth also exists about Puttenahalli lake!"

And, as if he had been listening to the story too and wanted to show the children that just like the dragon he also had impressive flying skills, a pied kingfisher came to hunt for fish as everybody was making their way out from the event.  The kingfisher's ability to hover in one spot, before diving into the water caused much excitement. 

So in the end the kids left with two folktales in their heads and a lake experience from which they could weave a new story of their own.    

I'm delighted I was able to fill my own head with these rich stories and experiences too and I wish Lavanya, the PNLIT team and the children now growing up around Puttenahalli lake many more happy and inspiring storytelling sessions.