Carpenters Law
If you have only one nail, it will bend.


The Velachery jheel - Part I
This is a two-part series on the Velachery Marshland.

The Velachery area, originally was just a huge marshland, large tracts of water and massive grasslands; it was an amazing wetland area, was a reservoir for recharging the groundwater of the southern part of the city.
If you noticed that I was using was, the reason is because, it is no longer now. Already encroached upon by an exponentially growing residential-dwellings and denuded more by other development activities, it more resembles a haphazardly planned over-burdened township more than anything else.

The PalliKaranai Marsh, still attracts a lot of
waterfowl. Amazing place, this, but sadly being encroached upon.

When I first moved into Velachery (about 14 years ago), it was like in the picture, lakes and ponds interspersed by muddy grass islands, a perfect wetland habitat. From my house there, I could see kilometers away; it was like living in the middle of nowhere. The entire region was fed by an intricate network of natural canals sourced from the Chitlampakkam lake, shown in the picture below.
It attracted a lot of waterfowl, and was equivalent to even Vedanthangal in its capabilities as a fresh-water habitat. During heavy rains, the entire region was nothing but a humongous shallow lake. Of course, this had its side-effects; Mosquitoes was one example, travelling here during rains was another problem. All those is nothing but the past now.

The Chitlampakkam lake, full of water from the recent rains,
but half covered by water hyacinth

During my years there, the lake was atleast double this size. And was an amazing place. I still remember those happy carefree days (when Chennai aka Madras was a lil' bit cooler too)

To be continued...