What
visual ethnography & story-telling
With
Kadambari Komandur, Megha Kashyap, Bengaluru Sustainability Forum, Paani.Earth & WASI
Format
book and series of articles
Year
2023-2025
The idea
Whose river is it anyway grew from an imagination of the river as an independent being, flowing with agency and with a voice of her own. During the peak of the first COVID wave, in July 2020, we came across an article in the Times of India, with a picture of a relatively clean Vrishabhavathi river. This was a period when the industries in Peenya were not functioning and therefore, not discharging effluents. Our project unbeknownstto us actually began at this point, as a personal journey of understanding what we back then, as young architects, and citizen scientists could do to raise awareness about the river.
This book is an exercise in countering the dominant representation of rivers being state owned and human-controlled which creates an illusion that if we humans build enough infrastructure, we can conquer the river and break her natural state of being. While the Vrishabhavathi seems to be a river known to only a few in the present day, parallels can be drawn to other urban tributaries that have been relegated to misuse and disuse, marginalising people and dependent biodiversity. We hope that this document will counter this narrative and give a stronger voice to urban waters, by seeing them through eyes that are not just our own – those of beings in these bodies, animals dependent on them to quench their thirst, plants living and dying with their flow and of course the water through her own experiences of being.
The process
Through constant iterations, we debated how to present and represent a river, considering the limitations and flaws of data-focussed satellite based techniques. We sought to document what bottom up approaches to mapping could look like and in that process initiated exercises in counter mapping. While we were not entirely successful in this regard, the questions we raised through it are powerful enough to be heard by diverse audiences unrestricted to the halls of scientific and research institutes. Through the course of the project, we explored different ways to express the same stories along with the people who have been narrating it everyday, but who haven’t received the space to be heard.
Context
Today, Vrishabhavathi carves her path through the southwestern parts of Bengaluru and Ramanagara district, flowing for 69 km with a catchment area of 170 sq km. Once a lifeline, she now bears the burden of carrying the toxic wastewater of one-third of Bengaluru. Flanked by industrial hubs in Peenya, Yeshwanthpur, Kumbalgodu, Bidadi, and Harohalli, she weaves through dense residential neighbourhoods, prestigious institutions, shopping malls, temples, and farmlands before merging with the Arkavathi river. Even in her polluted state, she remains a source of life—her waters, however tainted, quench the thirst of wildlife as she passes near national parks, before ultimately surrendering herself to the Arkavathi near Kanakapura town. Labeled ‘critically polluted’ by the pollution control board, Vrishabhavathi has been stripped of recognition as a living system. Over time, she has been overwritten by waste and neglect, her presence diminished by the promise of piped water from the Kaveri.
Livelihood disruptions
“..When there was no city, we could see Vrishabhavathi Nadi flow between the two hills that make up our valley…”
The first story takes you through a washerfolk (Dhobi) community’s experiences of living with the river for generations. While they do not engage directly with the river now, there were power driven negotiations by the municipality over who gets to use water from the river.
“Every time the river comes into our shop, we incur huge losses. We have to close the shop and sweep the water back into the streets.”
The second story travels southwards along with the river and how its urban transformation creates seasonal challenges for vendors and residents living beside her.
Agrarian distress or pollution enabling profit?
“I want to draw Vrishabhavathi Nadi (river) using the colour blue…”
The penultimate story is written and drawn through the sketches and poems made my children who walk by the river to their school but with no other relation to it apart from stories passed on by their parents. The other side to this is that the polluted waters enable the farmers int heir town to make profits by growing baby corn, a crop that thrives in the chemical heavy waters.
This town also is home to the Harohalli industrial area and behind the high walls of the area, pollutants are released everyday into the lake and the river flowing next to it.
Damming nature
“Do we really need the massive Mekedatu Dam or can we imagine other solutions for water? What stands in the way of these less invasive solutions?”
The book ends with conversations on the planned Mekedatu Dam near the Kaveri reserve forest. This dam can upend the lives of not just the people living near it, but the entire ecosystem – the Mahseer fish is one of the most crucial beings in this river, whose breeding cycles are already threatened due to pollution from the cities.
Continuing critical conversations through outreach
✦ Book featured in The Hindu (2025)
✦ Project exhibited at the Waterscapes Exhibition (2025)
✦ Project featured in the Floating cities project by artist Elsa Mroziewicz (2023)
✦ Project featured in the Rivers of Life Exhibition at Azim Premji University (2022)
✦ Read more about our process on our website.