Articles by Usha Rajagopalan

The monsoon is a love - hate season. You may hate the wetness, the puddles, the sniffling noses, darkness of the skies, the difficulty in waking up, but you can't deny that it is magical time with the cooing of the cuckoo, dancing of the peacock, crispy pakodas, hot chai ... the list is endless! Let's celebrate the Magical Monsoon!! Paint your favourite monsoon scenes!! Tell your rainy day tales!! Date: Saturday August 9th Time: 5 pm to 6 30 pm Venue: Gazebo, Puttenahalli Lake (of course!) Admission is open and free, however, we do welcome your donations to PNLIT!…

With the sun's heat accelerating the rate of evaporation, the water level has fallen sharply in our Puttenahalli Lake and there are no more than four or five pools of water left. We have been consoling ourselves with the thought that this is still far, far better than this time last year when we had literally a few buckets of water in the entire lake. Fish had died in scores then and the lake bed was hard and with cracks and crevices. Encouraged by the monsoon filling the lake somewhat, in September we'd released 3000 fingerlings and the birds returned once again. …

To celebrate Earth Day (that is observed all over the world on 22nd April), PNLIT is happy to host an event called Dance at Dusk in association with the Snehadhara Foundation. The programme is being held on a Saturday to enable adults to participate along with their children.  Date: 26th April 2014 (Saturday) Time: 5:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Place: Puttenahalli Lake, at the gazebo     What is Dance at Dusk? Here's a brief note on the event from Snehadhara: Dance at Dusk We at Snehadhara believe that movements have inner meanings and purposes along with their outer expressive…

The fire that raged through the lake on the 16th of March almost killed our spirit. By burning several of our trees, it had made a mockery of our effort to increase the green cover in the area. The sun's heat, rapidly evaporating the water in the lake, sapped our enthusiasm as well. Whatever little water was present was getting covered with the Salvinia Molesta. Our many efforts to mobilize skilled labour to remove the Salvinia were making no headway. Attempts to get more residents to strengthen our effort drew a blank as well and only our regular volunteers attended our recent…

Going to the lake at least once every day, we are apt to overlook or take for granted, the birds at the lake. Those in the water may still get a glance but we often miss the ones flying overhead, hiding in the foliage or even sitting still on a branch. Participating in the Bangalore Bird Count on Sunday, 16th February changed all this - at least for a couple of hours!  Our team consisted of Gopinath Subbarao, Harish Mahendrakar (the two experts), Indrajit Chatterjee (photographer), Vishnu and Siddharth, 9th std. students and me, from PNLIT. We began the exercise…

Ever since our volunteers heaved the dead tree down the slope and onto the lake bed it has been a favourite perch for some bird or the other. Mostly though, it was only for mynahs and a stray kingfisher. Some days ago, our gardeners set the tree upright and planted it firmly in the ground, well above the water mark. In the recent downpour, however, the level increased to such an extent that the dead tree was exactly as we had wanted it to be - in a foot or more of water. Since then it has become a perch for Little…

One of the highlights of Navaratri is the Golu (Bombe Habba) when dolls are displayed tastefully on shelves. It is also an opportunity for the family to show their creativity by setting up a park or garden with sprouts and little figures. What is less known about Golu is that in earlier times the celebration aimed at encouraging dredging of irrigation canals and river beds. The clay thus removed was used to make the dolls. One of the residents in my apartment complex invited me for haldi kumkum. Raji had arranged the Golu in the front room so I went automatically towards it…

Maintaining our Puttenahalli Lake is really so full of challenges which tax, vex and worry us at times but it also springs surprises that make our hearts sing! Today morning was one such great day. Yellappa, the fisherman contractor called to say that his men were on their way to the lake to plant the stakes, remove the new shoots of weeds, clean the water of stray plastic, etc. They had come at 5 a.m. and left the fibre glass coracle at the lake.   My friends and I swung into action. We had already bought the casuarina poles, three of…

It was a magical morning at Puttenahalli Lake on 7th September. The occasion was a nation wide story telling event promoted by Pratham Books to celebrate International Literacy Day. PNLIT signed up to engage children in the locality with Surabhi Herur, a young and versatile theatre person who lives in Elita Promenade, Priya Ramakrishnan, carnatic music teacher and her daughter Sukanya a budding story teller from Brigade Millennium.         The children and their parents began assembling a good half hour before the programme began and whiled the time by walking around and seeing the Coots and Cormorants in the…

Children from three branches of a play school visited the lake today, 26th Aug. 2013. They had been learning about birds and flowers from books and had come to see them in real.     The first excitement was an insect in the gazebo and then the walk began.      As if flowers in our garden, butterflies flitting everywhere and birds in the sky and water were not enough, the sight of the chicks of the Common Coot made the three year olds open their eyes even wider. A couple of slugs and a wriggling earthworm added to their…