Mambakkam Kulam (Waterbodies of Chennai - 1)

I thought of visiting the currently surviving waterbodies of Chennai and its suburbs and writing about them in my blog as a series. As per a report, there were about 650+ waterbodies in the Chennai region till the 1980s. Today, only a fraction of them exist. And most of those surviving waterbodies hardly have water, and even some of them that have water have been poorly shrunk. In Chennai, there are tank roads without tanks nearby and lake view roads without any lake nearby. There is a high possibility that even the few waterbodies we have today might vanish soon.

Mambakkam is a small village located at a distance of around 14 km from Tambaram. Till 2010 or so, this was a quiet and remote village with limited access from the city. The village was surrounded by paddy fields and water bodies. Thanks to urbanization, the village has already lost its paddy fields, replaced by high-rise buildings, flats, and educational institutes.

Kulam, a broad and vast tank located at the junction of Mambakkam and Ponmar villages, was a significant landmark of the village till a few years ago. Anyone visiting the village would recall this beautiful tank even after many years. Although the neighborhood of this tank has been converted into flats and residential plots, this tank has not yet been touched upon. This tank has no name, particularly. People call this tank Kulam (in Tamil, "Kulam" means tank). The tank, surrounded by trees on all sides, gives a typical village feel. Fortunately, the tank has water throughout the year.

Happy travelling.