Growing up in Calcutta, walking through neighbourhood streets, one sometimes overheard a belligerent threat spilling out of a street-fight: "Beshi kawtha bolle mukher geography paalte debo!" – "if you talk too much I will change the geography of your face!" Pursued or not, the implication of the threat was that it would be a change for the worse. Over the last decade or so, the 'geography' of Calcutta's face has been changed considerably, and proactively, by the present regime – for the better, one would say. And among many changes, a visible one has been wrought on the Rabindra Sarobar lakes (formerly known as the Dhakuria lakes) in the south of the city, now prettified beyond recognition from a few years ago.
An artificial waterbody dredged out of marshy lands around 1920, the area of the 'lakes' stretches over 192 acres. The Kolkata Improvement Trust, a century-old statutory body under the West Bengal government, was entrusted with its improvement and beautification plan worth INR 200 million (USD 3 million), on which work began in early 2014. Perceived as West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's biggest gift to southern Calcutta, it is one among many that 'Didi' has presented the city with, to make it look and feel lighter, brighter, better.