Banganga Tank and Walkeshwar Temple Complex

Banganga Tank sits in a hollow on the seaward side of Malabar Hill, a rectangle of green water enclosed by stone steps and surrounded by shrines, priests' houses and old rest houses, a few hundred metres from some of the most expensive real estate in India. It was built in 1127 by Lakshman Prabhu, a minister at the court of the Silhara kings who ruled the Konkan coast, and reconstructed in 1715 with the patronage of the Bombay merchant Rama Kamath. Local tradition links the tank to the Ramayana: Rama, searching for Sita, is said to have shot an arrow, a baan, into the ground here to draw fresh water, giving the site its name and explaining the freshwater spring that still feeds the tank despite the sea lying a short walk away. The adjacent Walkeshwar temple, whose name derives from a linga of sand said to have been made by Rama, was destroyed during the Portuguese period and rebuilt in the eighteenth century. The precinct is a working religious neighbourhood rather than a monument: pilgrims perform last rites on the ghats, oil lamps burn in wall niches, temple bells sound through the lanes, and swans and ducks drift on the water. Every January the Banganga Festival brings Indian classical music concerts to the steps at night. Reaching the tank means walking down a narrow lane from Walkeshwar Road, a descent of a few minutes that leaves the modern city behind almost entirely.