The Hindu : Karnataka News : Mounds of garbage surround Bharachukki

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 14, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka

Mounds of garbage surround Bharachukki

By Divya Sreedharan

The Shivanasamudra Falls. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE, NOV. 13. Walking up to the Bharachukki waterfall takes your breath away. In this case, it is not only the splendour of the scene but also the stench around the place that does the "trick". Mounds of garbage surround Bharachukki and its equally impressive twin, Gaganachukki. Bharachukki, in fact, is dirtier. It is considered holy by some and a community has even settled in the area adjacent to the waterfall. So, apart from discarded plastic wrappers and soft drink bottles, there are also piles of household rubbish. To make matters worse, the smell of cow dung mingles with the stink from the nearby toilets. Most visitors use the open ground rather than brave the toilets.

Rocky

The waterfalls themselves are pristine because visitors find the approach to them too steep and rocky. But hardy Kannada and Tamil film crews clamber up the jagged rocks to use the falls as a backdrop for romantic songs.

The waterfalls have left a deep impression on all those who have seen them. Bryan Swan and Dean Gross, who have set up the website, www.world-waterfalls.com, have included the twin falls in a compilation of the "100 best falls in the world." The falls are created when the Cauvery roars down a 75-metre gorge. The river divides around the 700-acre picturesque Shivanasamudra Island. On the one side, it forms the Gaganachukki falls and on the other it rumbles down as the Bharachukki falls.

Mr. Swan and Mr. Goss use a "visual magnitude" rating based on a logarithmic scale of 10, taking into consideration a waterfall's height, width, volume and slope. Each increase of 10 in the rating number indicates a doubling of the impressiveness of the waterfall. For example, a waterfall with a rating of 90 is twice as impressive as the one with a rating of 80, and a rating of 100 is four times as impressive as a rating of 80. "The Cauvery Falls" (that is how they describe the twin falls) get a rating of 127.

This is what they say: Gaganachukki is a large horsetail and Bharachukki is a jagged crashing cascade. The monsoon season makes this waterfall swell to enormous proportion, creating a waterfall perhaps, a 1,000 ft wide."

Despite all the praise, visitors could not care less about keeping the surroundings clean. Some environmentalists feel that both places must be made "no plastic zones". Others counter that a ban would work only if guards are posted there and adequate facilities set up. Besides, they add, good facilities also need to be kept that way.

The Energy Minister, H.D. Revanna, has said that India's oldest hydro power station situated on the beautiful island will be reopened to tourists in a month.

This, some critics believe, is akin to dooming the place forever.

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