The story behind the name Hussain Sagar

Many would be surprised to know that Hussain Sagar was the final challenge for the swimmers of Hyderabad, a la the English Channel.
"The challenge was to paddle up to the rock of Gibraltar (on top of which the Buddha Statue stands today) and get back. Only the strongest of swimmers could do that to stake claim to being one of the hardiest swimmers of Hyderabad," recalls Hyderabad-based historian Sajjad Shahid. It's another thing that swimming in the Hussain Sagar is perhaps an even greater challenge today, albeit for entirely different reasons, what with tales of sailors developing skin infections and stomach upsets after falling into the lake, going around!
"However, the Hussain Sagar had beautiful clear waters and was known for its delicious Murrel (fish). Even until the 70s, its waters were supplied as drinking water to the downstream part of the city. So it is painful to see it reduced to a cesspool that it has become today. It stinks," laments Sajjad who learnt how to swim in the waters of the 449-year-old lake. Naturally there are many stories about the lake, both good and bad, but fascinating nevertheless.
The story behind the name
Here is an interesting anecdote about how it got its name - Hussain Sagar. Ibrahim Quli Qutub Shah commissioned the construction of the lake in 1562. Sufi Saint Hussain Shah Wali, the son-in-law of the king, was entrusted the duty of overseeing the construction work of the lake. Apparently, the lake became so deep and big that it remained empty for a few years and they had to bring an additional channel of water from the Musi to fill it up. "Legend has it that one day, the King went to take a look at the lake after the construction and was more than irked to hear a bystander call it the Hussain Sagar Cheruvu. He had spent a fortune to build it and he was miffed that he got no credit for it. So, the king ordered the construction of Ibrahimpatnam Lake," says Salil Kader, a researcher and a former professor of History, Moulana Azad University.
The Husain Sagar though was easily the more glamorous one. It found a flattering mention in writer Phillip Meadows Taylor's 1839 book, "Confessions of a Thug", based on confessions of Syeed Amir Ali, a notorious thug of the time. "As we passed it a strong breeze had arisen, and the surface was curled into a thousand waves, whose white crests as they broke sparkled like diamonds, and threw their spray into our faces as they dashed against the stone work of the embankment. We stood a long time gazing upon the beautiful prospect, so new to us all, and wondering whether the sea, of which we had heard so much, could be anything like what was before us."
Nostalgia
That was Hussain Sagar then. The lake has shrunk almost by half now to about 13 square kilometers from its original size of around 24 square kilometers. But it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the lake has been an integral part of the city all through its chequered history. "It was on the banks of the lake that the first truce between Golconda and the Moghuls was negotiated. Hayath Bakshi Begum, mother of second last king, negotiated a truce with Mughals commanded by Aurangazeb Shah Jahan in the mid sixteen hundreds. Abdullah Qutub Shah was the ruler of Hyderabad then," points Sajjad.
"The Tank Bund used to be the prized walkway of the city with its pristine surroundings. Many famous people of Hyderabad, liked to take their evening walks there, the most prominent of them being Nawab Dawood Jung, who built the first pavilion on the banks of the lake," recalls Nawab Shafath Ali Khan, the great grand son of Nawab Sultan Ali Khan Bahadur, erstwhile Prime Minister of Hyderabad State. "The sprawling artificial lake divided and united the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad," he adds.
A solemn testimony
It would be fair to say the lake bears testimony to all that's happened in Hyderabad. The city's first power station, the mint compound, the first telephone exchange, the Burgula Ramakrishna Bhawan, the Secretariat which was the erstwhile palace of Nizam Mehboob Ali Pasha, they all cropped up around the vicinity of the lake, some even encroaching upon it.
A fair share of effluents from the city's earliest industries in Patancheru also found their way in the Tank Bund as did sewage waters. The lake was also a notorious suicide point at one time. Even the Buddha statue took a dip in the waters before being resurrected amid much fanfare after a year. Add to the list, the innumerable Ganesh idols of all sizes, over the years. During the late 80s, the road on the Tank Bund was broadened and beautified with lawns and lined with 33 statues of famous personalities of the State. In the late 90s, the Necklace Road was constructed around the lake in keeping with the new Hi-Tech outlook of Hyderabad.
Then and now
"To me, the Tank Bund with the Buddha statue, is a symbol of the modern Hyderabad. Very few cities in India can boast of a lake that size right in the middle of the city. It's sad that the conditions of the lake have been on a perpetual decline for last four decades now. We need a concerted civil society effort to ensure this stops," says Salil.
Dr Jasween Jairath, one of the founding members of SOUL (Save Our Lakes), a group that focuses on protecting lakes in the city, holds the government responsible for the degradation of the water body. "We have just filed two complaints, one against the construction of boundary walls by the Saibaba Temple near the KIMS hospital and another against the KIMS to stop them from dumping hospital waste into the lake," fumes Dr Jasween. In fact, it has been reported that Care hospital and Medwin Hospitals too have been found to be directly letting out their liquid waste and fecal waste into the Hussain Sagar directly. Jasween is also critical of the plan proposed by APPCB ( Andhra Pradesh Pollution Control Board) to build an ecological park there. "It's ironic that you destroy a habitat and dump more debris into the lake in the name of an ecological park," she says.
Clearly the lake deserves better, the Chief Minister recently promised that the polluted lake would be restored to its pristine glory by March 2013, when Hussain Sagar Lake and Catchment Area Improvement Project (HCIP) would be complete. Now that would be something if it does happen.