Temple Tank, Ekambareswarar Temple (Waterbodies of Chennai - 22)

It is hard to believe that such a congested and crowded locality like George Town has many waterbodies. I think it is perhaps the locality in entire Chennai that has the maximum number of surviving waterbodies.

Ekambareswarar temple, located on Mint Street in this locality, was built in the 1680s. (Click here to learn more about this temple.) It has a beautiful pond on the rear side, which must be as old as the temple. It's a small and beautiful pond spread across around 0.2 acres.

This is one of the few temple tanks in this area that is maintained properly. It was not the case till the early 2000s. Only in the past 10-15 years the temple authorities have taken steps to restore back the glory of this tank. Let us hope that they continue to do a good job.

Happy travelling.

Note: 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 lakes. There is a high possibility that even the few waterbodies we have today might vanish soon. I decided to visit the currently surviving waterbodies of Chennai and its suburbs and write about them in my blog as a series.

Visit my site, krishnakumartk.com, to know more about the travel guides and other books that I have written.