Rapidly urbanising agrarian regions of South India provides with a unique opportunity to understand the transforming relationship between the commons and the community. The lake system in Bangalore therefore is a unique opportunity to examine this relationship. As a regionally networked water harvesting system, the lakes are central to the drainage ecology of Bangalore as well as to the cultural life. The urbanisation of these regions implies the formation of new forms of social relations, as well as new demands from these ecological commons. As a case, the lakes in Bangalore shall be framed to understand how the form and process of its transformation and the social relations within which it is embedded are interrelated.