The city of Udaipur is located in the southern end of Rajasthan, a fertile valley bounded by hills. Owing to the mountainous divide of the Aravalli ranges in the state, the region of Mewar, characterised by rocky hills, dense forests, elevated plateaus and alluvial plains, presents a geographical scenario almost opposite to the sandy, arid landscape of Marwar.

While the south-west monsoon winds, running parallel to Aravalli, surpass the region causing very little rainfall, Southern Rajasthan captures low-velocity winds obstructed by hills, causing humid conditions. Mewar’s unique topography is drained by two main rivers – Banas and Berach, the floodplains of which have been home to ancient Ahar cultures dating back to the time of Harappan civilisation. (Aquatic Resources: A Case Study of Udaipur ‘City of Lakes’, Rajasthan – Hemant Mangal and Sandhya Pathania)

Udaipur’s ancient synonymy with lakes began as early as 1568 when Rana Udai Singh decided to move his capital here, after Chittorgarh had succumbed to Akbar’s forces. He strategically ordered the royal palace to be built on the east of the artificial embankment of Lake Pichhola, securely surrounded by scrub-forested hills. (The City Palace Museum Udaipur: Paintings of Mewar Court Life – Andrew Topfield)

Negotiating the gradually sloping terrain of the region, the flow of water had to be checked at crucial points to provide for domestic and irrigational needs as well as create a recreational landscape for Rajput royalty. The Southern tip of Lake Pichhola, with its depth varying from 4 to 8 metres, was secured with a stone masonry dam to ensure a perennial supply of water for the city’s sustenance. The early settlement of Udaipur spread in the bowl-shaped basin fed by river Ayad, a tributary of Banas that ultimately drains in the Gulf of Kutch.

Through the landform of valleys and ridges, seasonal streams briefly collected water into natural depressions. These catchments could be harnessed to become provisional means of water supply through a series of channels and harvesting infrastructure.

This resulted in the indigenous system of inter-connected lakes of Udaipur that has made the city self-sufficient till date. The south-easterly slope of the terrain brings water from the upper lakes of Bada Madar, Chhota Madar and Badi Talav, channelising it into six networked lakes within the city and further towards the downstream lake of Udaisagar.

While Pichhola and Fatehsagar are the two largest lakes located in the heart of the city, the others act as smaller overflow tanks. These are all connected with linkage channels that follow the contours to allow a natural sequence of flow and are separated with sluice gates to prevent any solid material from being carried on. Dense settlement around the water edges and protected green fringes direct the city’s stormwater into the lakes. (Urban Water Resource Management for Udaipur City -Anil Kumar Bairwa, Dissertation, IIT Roorkee)

Sketching the Past

The fourteenth century landscape of Udaipur was a combination of hills, mounds, streams and marsh, dotted with trees and lush with wildlife. The Monsoon Palace of Sajjangarh, located at the highest point of the city, had been built solely to enjoy the view of exotic migratory birds of the season and conduct hunting expeditions into the jungle. Many miniature paintings of that time vividly render tiger hunting scenes set against a dense green vegetative background.

The embankments around Lake Pichhola has a series of ghats, one of the most interesting interfaces between land and water, flanked with traditional bath houses, temples and havelis. A point of social convergence and a platform for celebration, rituals and domestic chores, they must have been central to people’s lifestyle in the past. Architectural nuances like jali-windows, balcony projections, arched elements and colonnaded pavilions respond to the microclimate conditioned by the presence of lakes in the city and create an array of visual links with water (An exploration of the historic core along Lake Pichola in Udaipur– S. Samant, School of the Built Environment, University of Nottingham, UK).

Historical accounts vividly describe the boat procession during Gangaur, a colourful festival of the womenfolk of Rajasthan, to be a mesmerising spectacle. Col. James Tod, an English officer under the East India Company and author of Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, remarked:

“A more imposing and exhilarating sight cannot be imagined than the entire population of the city thus assembled for the purpose of rejoicing the countenance of every individual from the Prince to the peasant, dressed in smiles. Carry the eye to heaven and it rests on a sky without a cloud; below is a magnificent lake, the even surface of blue waters broken by palaces of marbles, whose arched piazzas are seen through the foliage of orange grove plantain and tamarind; while the vision is bounded by noble mountains, their peaks towering over each other and composing an immense amphitheater.”

In earlier times, the lakes were not a direct source of water to be used by the public. Instead, they were part of the ecosystem that had evolved to be in sync with nature. While these large catchments served as reserves, collecting rainwater during the season and maintaining their level all round the year, surrounding forest cover ensured minimum erosion.

It absorbed excess surface water and prevented silt from being deposited on lake beds. Understandably, this kept the ground water table recharged, allowing sufficient seepage in wells, stepwells and kunds, from where water was drawn on a daily basis. This cycle of replenishment, only complete with aquatic life, birds and trees, never deprived the city of its serene waterscape.

Present day

With the hike in population, Udaipur’s boundaries have pushed out of its hilly confines and condensed the historical core further inward. With about 70 ghats, 80 plus hotels and 6,000 houses located on lake slopes, these water bodies are under constant threat of degradation. (Eutrophication in the Lakes of Udaipur city: A case study of Fateh Sagar Lake – Deeksha Dave, 2011)

Bathing and washing activity, garbage, sewage, chemical effluents and layers of algae are polluting Udaipur’s only source of drinking water. Alarmingly, untreated industrial waste also finds its way in the water streams from zinc smelting plants, marble factories and mining sites. River Ayad, which flows through the heart of the city, has pityingly been reduced to a canal, its flow hindered with construction debris in some pockets while other areas are left dry due to overgrazing and digging. Since deforestation and siltation have reduced the lake depths to a quarter of what it was 50 years ago, the natural cleansing process through sedimentation does not happen efficiently.

While authoritative bodies have acknowledged an environmental urgency in this matter, little has come to effect. In a recent notice by the high court to take immediate action for the protection of lakes, all construction activity has been banned around sensitive areas and restrictions imposed on social and religious events that may pollute the banks of these water bodies. Every commercial set-up within the range of 250 metres, including restaurants, hostels and guest houses have had to sign an undertaking to ensure no harmful substances are released in the lakes.

The Lake Conservation Society, an independent body of volunteers established in 1992, actively identifies pressing issues in this regard and compiles status reports.

However, it is not uncommon to find unchecked sewage outlets directly meeting Lake Picchola and marble slurry dumps contaminating groundwater (Citizens’ Role in Ecological, Limnological, Hydrological Conservation of Udaipur Lake System -Anil Mehta, Jheel Sanrakshan Samiti Udaipur).

Luxury hotels like the Leela Palace and Oberoi Udaivilas, opened in the year 2000 among many others, just a few feet from the water edge, have contributed to Udaipur’s international tourism success along with accelerating pressure on the remaining lakefront land. It has opened doors for smaller entrepreneurs to acquire properties along the lake periphery and convert them into heritage lodging. The clustering built mass communicates economic desperation and struggle for livelihood as well as a drifting interest from conservation of resources. The changing scenario has alienated harmonious communities from their landscape, prioritising individual needs.

The way forward

Udaipur’s lakes are the relief points of the city, calming waters punctuating a busy urbanscape. They are liquid pores in a sprawling mass, giving a distinct identity to this place. The Master Plan of 2031 maintains green zones around Fatehsagar and Pichhola, carefully protecting the mounds around these lakes (Nagar Niyojan Vibhag, Rajasthan). The open tracts of land in their vicinity are indicated as recreational parks, playgrounds, stadiums or Government Reserved Areas.

Some of these are landscaped gardens with stone sculpture insets by local artists while are others raw sites adopted by the Forest Department like that around Sajjangarh pronounced as the Biological Park. Areas around Badi Lake, most of which is mentioned as agricultural land or reserved forest area, remains comparatively untouched despite excessive urban pressure. The fluidity of this landscape, with its undulating nature and natural soaking ground, has this particular lake full to the brim.

The lakes of Udaipur are layered and networked, not singular and secluded. They need permeable edges and buffers that allow them to expand and contract, to accommodate degrees of uncertainty and critically negotiate their presence in an urban environment.

Taking a cue from its own ancestral wisdom, the city needs to readopt its nonlinear system of supplying water, where the lakes do not serve as shallow storage containers but organic depressions that help replenish groundwater. Their boundaries should gradually transient into wetlands that naturally purify the inflow, instead of abruptly ending in dead bund walls (Deccan Traverses: The Making of Bangalore’s Terrain – Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha).

A large infrastructure of stepwells and kunds that lies forgotten in muck can be revived to participate in the system once more. Architectural innovation can retain natural sponges while allowing public access, instead of crudely compromising with hard pavements and solid barriers. Urban design can then establish a dignified association of the city with its water bodies, accounting for a gradient terrain and seasonal channels of water.

However, first and foremost, we need a dialogue.

Rupal Rathore is an architect and a graduate of NMIMS, Mumbai.

This article was originally published in the Journal of Landscape Architecture and has been reproduced here with permission.