THROUGH the veil of twilight that looks so surreal in the post-dusk and pre-dawn hours, the Ambazari Lake looks a different entity -- mystical, mythical, magical! Mesmeric, magnetic, magnanimous! Beautiful, bewitching, breathtaking! The placid surface of the water assumes a dull azure shade despite absence of full light. Slowly, it creeps into one’s subconscious and spreads in the nooks and corners of the inner being. That’s Ambazari! Of course, this is true of all lakes -- and rivers -- and more so of the ocean. But the Ambazari has its own presence in the loosefooter’s thought. That was the place from where once upon a time came the drinking water into the kitchen tap. That was also the place where swimming was not allowed since the city drank its potion from the lake.

 

That was also the lake whose embankment the city’s young and old volunteers had saved from a major breach several decades ago. The city, of course, does not carry in its heart the same respect today for the Ambazari Lake as it did in the past. Yet, the lake still holds its beauty intact -- and also its attraction for the loosefooter. Our drinking water does not come from there. And the once-wonderfully maintained garden, too, has lost its elegance over time. Never mind all that, the magnetic attraction of the Ambazari Lake has not waned in the loosefooter’s mind even by a grain. He has often made his way to the embankment mostly in twilight hours -- only to enjoy the surreal feel that carries him aloft on a magical carpet into different domains of imagination in which fine poetry, fine prose, fine people and fine ideas are eternal residents.

 

True, the loosefooter has sat by countless lakes and rivers and even oceans in twilight hours -- the Ganga in Varanasi, the Narmada, the Badaa Taal of Bhopal, the lake Hussain Sagar in Hyderabad, the Lake Illinois in Chicago, the Atlantic Ocean from the Liberty Island, the Mississippi river at several places across its long journey, the confluence of three seas at Kanyakumari (the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal) ...! Despite all that, the Ambazari Lake back home in Nagpur has always held a magnetic attraction for the loosefooter. It was on that embankment he remembers -- as a child -- leaning against his mother’s back listening to the tales that mesmerised the little mind. As those wonderful tales unfolded, the mostly placid waters of the Ambazari stayed a witness to a great mother-and-child connect.

 

Most unfortunately, a lot of the serene physical persona of the Ambazari Lake stands rather defiled in the past few years. Yet, those waters still hold an attraction that often transcends words. The same can be said of most other lakes in the city of Nagpur -- with each of those having lost a lot of its earlier glory. But then, that is what a thoughtless process of urbanisation does wherever it sets its ugly foot. Yet, the loss is felt more pointedly at the Ambazari Lake. n