Loktak Lake

Loktak Lake

Judhajit Samajdar

6/19/2025

Ask a fisherman here about his address and he'll likely laugh. "My home moves with the wind," comes his inevitable reply, pointing to a floating hut drifting slowly across Loktak Lake. "Yesterday it was there, today it's here. Tomorrow? Who knows?"

This isn’t poetry — it’s lived reality. Their world, built on a mass of vegetation and roots called a phumdi, literally floats. Their neighbors’ homes drift too. Even the national park floats, home to deer that have learned to walk on land that sways like a boat.

Across this 287-square-kilometre expanse — Northeast India’s largest freshwater lake — nothing stays still. In Manipur’s Loktak Lake, survival is a quiet, beautiful act of adaptation. Welcome to one of India’s most unique ecosystems.

Living on Water: The Phumdi Life

Loktak Lake seems to breathe beneath your feet. As you step onto a phumdi — a floating island of tangled vegetation, organic matter, and silt — you feel an almost imperceptible sway, as though the lake itself moves with you.

A floating hut on a phumdi

But these floating islands are more than nature’s curiosities — they’re the foundation of life here. Dotted across the shimmering waters are phumsangs, floating huts that serve as homes and workspaces for fishermen and their families. At dawn, slender canoes slip quietly across the water, nets cast in rhythms passed down for generations.

Meals here are simple and fresh: lake fish, foraged plants, and stories passed from one generation to the next. Children grow up learning to navigate the lake’s paths before they can even walk confidently on dry land.

Walking on a phumdi is surreal. The ground dips and rebounds, soft and springy. Each step is a quiet reminder of the fragile harmony between human life and the natural world — a relationship that’s been evolving for centuries.

For the traveler, Loktak offers a disorienting kind of beauty. A place where floating villages, sky, and water blur into a landscape that feels dreamlike yet deeply rooted.

Keibul Lamjao & the Dancing Deer

Beyond the villages lies one of India’s most extraordinary secrets: Keibul Lamjao, the world’s only floating national park. Spread over 40 square kilometers of dense phumdis, the park rises and falls with the rhythms of the lake — an ecosystem like no other.

Its most celebrated resident is the Sangai deer, an endangered species found nowhere else on Earth. Known as the "dancing deer" for its high-stepping gait across floating ground, the Sangai is also the state animal of Manipur — and a powerful symbol of resilience and identity.

For years, communities, conservationists, and the state have worked to protect this fragile habitat. But like many ecological wonders, Loktak must balance multiple roles — as a home, a resource, a sanctuary, and a destination. Fishing, farming, and eco-tourism in Manipur all intersect here, making conservation both urgent and complex.

Visitors can explore the park through guided boat tours or from elevated viewpoints overlooking the phumdis. Spotting the elusive Sangai is often the highlight of wildlife tourism in Manipur, and a chance to witness a rare, floating forest in motion.

Legends, Rituals, and the Spirit of Loktak

Loktak Lake is more than an ecological marvel — it’s a sacred space. For generations, it has been at the heart of Manipur’s culture, traditions, and oral storytelling.

One of the lake’s most enduring legends speaks of Loktak Pabulai, the mythical dragon said to live beneath its waters. As a guardian spirit, it protects the lake and its people — a symbol of the deep spiritual bond between community and landscape.

Festivals here reflect that bond. During Lai Haraoba, rituals and dances honour local deities and the elemental forces of nature, including the lake itself. On Cheiraoba, the Manipuri New Year, families offer prayers by the water’s edge, seeking harmony, protection, and renewal.

These aren’t just celebrations — they’re acts of continuity. Elders still pass down lake myths and melodies, keeping the lake’s folklore alive. To know Loktak is to listen — to its ripples, to its winds, and to the voices that have told its stories for generations.

Saving a World That Floats

There’s something poetic about a lake that never stands still. Loktak shifts with the wind, rearranges its boundaries, and carries homes like feathers on its back. But even in its quiet beauty, it’s learning to hold more than ever before — more visitors, more expectations, more change.

Locals, however, have always known how to move with it. Fishermen still use age-old bamboo traps that work with the water’s rhythm. Families come together for small clean-ups, festivals pause to thank the lake, and slow travel has quietly begun replacing fast footprints.

For those who come here, the invitation is simple: float lightly. Choose a homestay that listens to the lake. Take a boat tour led by someone whose stories rise and fall with the tide. Support the people who live here, and you become part of what keeps this floating world gently afloat.

Living With the Lake

No two visits to Loktak feel the same. The wind shifts. The phumdis drift. The light turns from gold to silver in a matter of minutes. This lake doesn’t just exist — it moves, adapts, and makes you feel something shift inside, too.

You arrive expecting scenery. You leave remembering rhythm — of water, of people, of a place that has always known how to live with change.

And in that rhythm, perhaps Loktak leaves you with a quiet reminder: to move softly, to listen deeply, and to let the world surprise you by never standing still.