From Green Haven to Thirsting City

There was a time when Bengaluru was a whisper of cool winds through eucalyptus groves, a city where mornings carried the scent of dew and evenings folded into the hush of crickets by the lakes. Water was not a commodity but a rhythm — flowing through tanks, wells, and streams that stitched the city together. Trees stood like guardians, their canopies sheltering generations, their roots drinking from an earth that seemed inexhaustible.

To grow up in that Bengaluru was to believe in permanence.The green was endless, the cold was reliable, and the water was infinite. It was a city that invited you to pause, to breathe, to belong.

But the Bengaluru of today feels like a city that has misplaced its own memory. The lakes are silted or swallowed by concrete, borewells plunge deeper into the earth only to return dry, and the air carries the weight of heat and dust. The trees that once lined every street have been felled, replaced by glass towers and asphalt. The city that once sang with abundance now gasps for breath.

The pain lies not only in what has been lost, but in the realization that we let it slip away. We…