Water Babies of Bengaluru, Unite!

You have nothing to lose but your measured laps in swimming pools.

It’s 7.30 am on a Saturday. Bright-eyed, decked out in windcheaters, trackpants, and backpacks, over seventy-odd people from across the city have gathered at the campout point of Makali Durga, a popular trekking spot off Doddaballapura Road. Some of us woke up at 5 am and travelled over a hundred kilometres just to get here. A quick roll call is taken. All of the registered members accounted for, a bunch of peppy gentlemen lead this small pack through a swathe of marshy grasslands to the edge of the gloriously glistening Gunjur Lake. We — the Luru Newsletter team — are here with the OpenWater Swim Tribe Bengaluru. They are going to be the doulas dedicated to our first plunge into a city lake.

Brief notes

With the gorgeous lake in front of us, Rana Ghosh — one of the seven partners behind this initiative, which includes certified coaches and lifeguards, trained triathletes, and serious open water swimmer — leads this Saturday’s session on their community guidelines. He starts off by announcing “the fundamental requirement to be here: one must be able to swim continuously for 500 metres in a swimming pool that’s six feet deep or more.” He later clarifies to us over a phone call that this basic qualification “means that the person can swim for a considerable distance without touching their toes to the pool’s floor,” demonstrating “their confidence as a swimmer.”

At the lake, he underscores each participant’s need for a tow float (a lightweight, inflatable safety device that attaches to a swimmer’s waist and floats behind them to increase their visibility in open waters). “We have a strict ‘no tow float, no swim’ policy,” he states emphatically. Ghosh runs through the other safety protocols: “swim to the right of the neon-orange buoys,” “brightly coloured swim caps are preferred,” “members of our team are in the water in kayaks to help in an emergency,” “if asked to return to shore, immediately comply; it’s for your own safety,” and “there are no crocodiles in this lake but there are tiny fish that might nibble at your toes,” he adds thoughtfully for comic relief. There are a few minutes for questions; then the gathering disperses to change into swimwear.

The first to enter the inviting, cool waters of Gunjur Lake are the Tribe’s regulars and the few triathletes training for future meets. And then, grouped by ability, groups of participants are accompanied into the lake by a member of the organising team. There’s even a stoic, shiny German Shepherd seated regally in a kayak, keeping an eye on the swim session.

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A sales & marketing professional in the IT industry by day, Rana started swimming in 2018 because he was “bored of sitting on the sidelines of a pool” watching his six-year-old daughter being coached. He decided to join the classes too. While learning to swim and perfecting his strokes in the comfort of a pool was initially exciting, Rana wanted “more adventure.” Along with other like-minded people at swim class, he decided to train to swim in open waters. In April 2024, seven of them banded together to start the OpenWater Swim Tribe Bengaluru. A little over a year later, it has grown into “1,800-odd members on our WhatsApp group,” he proudly offers up.

“It started off as fun, but now, it’s serious business,” he half teases over our phone call. Seven years after his first time in a pool, Rana is now a certified open water coach and lifeguard, and has swum the English Channel as a member of a relay team twice; the first time was in June 2023. “This was six months after a spinal surgery,” he says; in November 2022, doctors had found a tumour in his spine.

Three of the other partners of the OpenWater Swim Tribe Bengaluru have also taken on — and completed — this 153-year-old historic swimming challenge, called “the toughest swim in the world”: Vishwanatha KC, a techie and lifeguard; Yajnanarayana Somayaji, a 10-km open water specialist; and Kiran Rajagopal, a certified swim coach and open water safety expert. The other partners are Sridhar Venkatrama, an Ironman-certified triathlete coach; Gautham PB, an entrepreneur and open water breaststroker; and Anpu Varkey, a muralist and visual artist.

Don’t be koi

“Be watchful of your surroundings,” Rana cautions. “Our number one priority at the OpenWater Swim Tribe meet-ups is safety,” he assures us. “This is because it is a lake; it is deep — at certain points it’s over 60 feet, one can’t see the lake floor, and there’s nothing to hold on to. And so, it is important to ensure that the environment is safe for open water swimming. Our singular agenda is to guide swimmers through the transition from pools to open water. Keeping it safe and fun,” he adds.

And in March, this year, a cohort of experienced swimmers from the Swim Tribe did their first off-site. “We headed out for a weekend to Kodi Bengre in Udupi district. On the first day, we just acclimatised to the open water conditions with free-form swims. The next day, we took a boat out into the sea, jumped out, and then swam back to the beach,” he says, painting the picture of a swimmingly good time. “Of course, with boat assistance,” he immediately adds. “But to qualify for these weekend trips, participants must be able to swim continuously for two kilometres in open waters.”.

After two hours of swimming, floating, and frolicking in Gunjur Lake, we’re struck by Rana’s parting words: that it’s “absolutely awesome” to be swimming freely in open waters in Bengaluru, a city “with no sea and no rivers.”

The details: For a link to their WhatsApp community and a schedule for their future open water swim meet-ups, head here.