Why this alien weed is the ‘terminator’ of India’s water worlds

Look out over

Powai Lake

on a warm April morning, and it’s a picture of calm — a wide, unbroken green expanse most Mumbaikars would envy. But that lush carpet isn’t grass, nor a garden. It’s

water hyacinth

, a thick, invasive weed that has been smothering India’s water bodies for decades.
Just last year, Mumbai’s civic body hauled out over 5,000 metric tonnes of it from Powai. A year later, it’s like it never left. Municipalities spend crores on cutting, scooping, and dragging it out, but like a ‘Terminator’ of the aquatic world, it’s always back.