BENGALURU: Elizabeth Maggie, the inventor of The Landlord’s Game (now famous as Monopoly) would probably have been intrigued by the game ‘Once There was a Lake’. She invented her game in the early 1900s to talk about land grab and its consequences in America, while the Bengalurean creators of ‘Once There Was A Lake’ aim to draw attention to how urbanisation has gobbled up the city’s water bodies. Bengaluru-based theatre group India Ensemble is organising a game of ‘Once There was a Lake’ online on June 12 at 5pm, for 30 players. Chanakya Vyas, the artistic director of Indian Ensemble, came up with the initiative to tell the story about the dire state of lakes in the city and the ways in which people can revive the beautiful water bodies that were once central to Bengaluru’s landscape.
Vyas believes that although a stage performance could have been worked out, an artiste can present an issue to people in any creative format. “This is a participatory model that engages individual players with fictional and nameless neighbourhoods where once there was a lake. The players’ objective is to revive the lake by making crucial decisions. While they are it, they also listen to audio tidbits about the neighbourhood’s past and present,” says Vyas.
The game was supposed to be played in a physical setup, but things got delayed due to the pandemic and they eventually decided to move things online. “We did research and ground work between October and December 2019. Between January and March 2020, we conducted trial runs in academic institutions, corporate offices and social organisations. Then the pandemic hit. We have documented some facts from the ground about different lakes in Bengaluru which will be used in the game,” says Vyas.
Case studies of Sarjapur Lake, Kalkere lake, Hulimavu Lake and others are incorporated in the game, to blend fictional and non-fictional accounts of the stories behind the lakes. Participants will also get to explore the legal challenges and judicial proceedings concerning some of these lakes along with a mix of fictional situations inspired from folklore, myths, anecdotes, oral histories, records and events surrounding lake revival processes in the city.
“Different lakes support different ecosystems, hence there are different stories. Our months-long documentation of the stories behind these lakes will ensure the game is accessible, informative and comprehensive for people to assess the severity of the conditions of water bodies in the city,” says Vyas. Once There Was A Lake is supported by grants from India Foundation for the Arts, under the Project 560 programme, and partly by Infosys Foundation.