BENGALURU: ONCE lifelines to the city, the rivers Arkavathi and Kumudvathi quietly flow through Bengaluru’s history.
While Arkavathi has faded, Kumudvathi is also becoming on the verge of extinction. And on this World Environment Day (June 5), artists, environmentalists, and citizens will gather on its banks for Kumudvathi Revival, an event dedicated to protecting and remembering the river.
The event will be held at Guruskool, a cultural space located along the banks of the Kumudvathi river.
“People have forgotten that this river exists,” said Gopal Navale, director of Guruskool and a member of the artist collective ‘Kala Yatri’, the organiser of the event.
“We want to change that not just through facts and speeches, but through shared experience and art.”
Kumudvathi Revival, taking place on June 5, will feature talks by experts like hydrologist Yale Lingaraju, who has mapped the river in detail and studied its underground water channels. There will also be the launch of a new book authored by a Kalayatri artist, and a live performance of the rain song “Male Male” by Blues Ghat.
The core of the gathering is the concern over a recent government proposal to reduce the protected buffer zone around the river from 1 kilometre to just 30 metres— a move which could allow real estate and industrial encroachment, endangering the river’s already fragile state.
“This buffer zone was meant to protect the river’s catchment,” Navale said. “If it shrinks, the Kumudvati would vanish like Arkavathy and become a drain, filled with sewage.”
“As the city grew bigger, the urban encroachment around Nandi Hills and all along that side increased which lead to the death of river. There is still some traces of life at Kumudvathi, and we have to save her. And for the last 20 years, a lot of people have been working to bring back life to this river,” he added.