Bengaluru: Gottigere’s century-old Kalyani gets a new lease of life

Bengaluru: People residing in Gottigere on Bannerghatta Main Road and nearby areas were hardly aware about the existence of a century-old Kalyani (a step well) in their vicinity. But now thanks to the efforts of some youth organisations, this Kalyani has got a new lease of life and started collecting rain water.

Nearly 100 volunteers from two organisations, ‘vSave’ and Yuva Brigade, have been working for the past fortnight to restore the Kalyani. The well located near Gali Anjaneya Temple in Gottigere was facing neglect and got reduced to a dumping pit and got covered with weeds.

BBMP officials also pitched in by providing tools and labourers to help volunteers. In the coming days the volunteers are planning to restore the damaged walls of Kalyani.

“The idea is to restore the historic well, which once provided drinking water to neighbourhood and travellers. The Kalyani is part of historical trade route between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and that is why you see lot of old trees along Bannerghatta Road (after city limits), once planted by travellers hundreds of years ago. Our team is already working on Save Gottigere Lake project and restoring the Kalyani at the same time,” said a member from vSave organisation.

Noted Historian Suresh Moona said that more such efforts were required to restore neglected pieces of history in Bengaluru. “Kalyanis have special place in the history of Bengaluru. They are monuments of cultural and religious importance and should be restored and protected. Even today a numbers of Kalyanis exists in Bengaluru and the government must document them so that further degradation does not happen,” he said.

Moona added that the Kalyanis in Bengaluru were often built near temples and also met the drinking water needs of people. “A number of sadhus used to perform jala-yoga or hata-yoga in these Kalyanis and several inscriptions have been found near these wells,” he added.