Every monsoon, headlines scream the same two words: “Nature’s fury.” But let’s be honest — rain is nature, disaster is us. Floods don’t come from the sky, they come from our greed, our planning boards, and our bulldozers. The rivers simply deliver the invoice.
What we call a natural calamity is often a very predictable consequence. What drowns us is not water, but memory loss — forgetting where the ponds, drains, and floodplains once were. Ironically, rainfall is free; the damage costs trillions. And each year, the bill gets bigger while accountability gets smaller.
When Cities Become Swamps by Choice
Take Gurugram, our self-proclaimed “Millennium City.” It dreams in glass towers and expressways, yet drowns every year in ankle-deep puddles. Why? Because every waterbody it had — ponds, lakes, drainage channels — was quietly erased and reborn as real estate. Rainfall isn’t the enemy here. Rainfall is innocent. The true culprit wears a builder’s helmet.
The irony? People now buy homes named after what was destroyed: “Lake View Residency” on a vanished lake, “Green Valley Apartments” on a buried wetland. The more a city builds, the less it breathes. Bengaluru’s IT capital status means nothing when tech parks sit under water like forgotten aquariums. Mumbai’s dream city narrative turns to nightmare every July. And Delhi, always ambitious, tries to outdo them all with flyovers over waterlogged underpasses.
The Himalayas Are Crumbling — And We Cheer
Uttarakhand, Himachal, Sikkim: the mountains cry in landslides and swollen rivers, but we still drill tunnels for hydropower and cut forests for highways. Projects are branded “green energy” even as they bulldoze fragile slopes. It’s a cruel irony — we fight climate change with the very dams that magnify its disasters.
Tourists take selfies at swollen rivers while locals bury their dead. Roads marketed as “all-weather connectivity” collapse in the first storm. The Himalayas were always fragile, but never this wounded. Concrete doesn’t just block rivers; it blocks wisdom. What’s worse is how governments celebrate ribbon-cutting ceremonies while ignoring the landslide warnings written in every crack of the earth.
A Tale of Two Investments
India spends billions on bullet trains, airports, and smart cities, but stormwater drains and flood forecasting systems struggle for crumbs. The paradox? A week of floods can wipe out more jobs than a year of recession, yet no finance minister counts it in the budget.
Consider this: a single metro project’s cost could fund the cleaning of hundreds of city drains, yet drains don’t win elections. Corporate boardrooms discuss GDP growth but ignore flood damage that silently eats the same GDP. Urban floods don’t just kill people; they kill productivity, schooling days, and small businesses. Flood resilience is seen as expense, not investment — until the water enters the minister’s own bungalow. That’s when relief funds suddenly arrive.
Development’s New Dictionary
We’ve perfected doublespeak.
- Encroachment on floodplains = “Urban growth.”
- Blocking natural drains = “Infrastructure.”
- Plastic-clogged sewers = “Civic challenge.”
- Sudden release of water from dams = “Emergency measure.”
What we call progress, rivers call murder.
And the dictionary keeps expanding. Demolition of villages is “resettlement.” Illegal mining is “resource extraction.” River taming is “modern engineering.” The vocabulary sounds progressive but hides violence against ecology. The language of development sanitizes the crime, making citizens believe they are victims of fate, not of policy. Irony lies in how carefully words are chosen, even as water carelessly floods homes.
Who Gets Drowned, Who Gets Away
Floods are democratic in rainfall, but elitist in destruction. The poor live closest to riverbanks, nallahs, and low-lying colonies. They pay with their homes and lives. The rich complain of traffic jams and property damage — but go back to apartments built on stolen wetlands. Everyone knows, yet no one stops.
A slum dweller gets blamed for “illegal encroachment” when his hut is washed away, but a mall on the same floodplain is called “urban development.” Disaster reporting counts the poor in body bags, while the rich count insurance claims. Even relief camps mirror inequality — some get tarpaulin, others get hotel discounts. Floods expose not just broken drains, but broken justice. And year after year, the same cycle repeats like déjà vu under water.
Climate Change Is the Amplifier, Not the Music
Yes, global warming makes rainfall more extreme. But what decides whether 10 cm of rain is an inconvenience or a catastrophe? Drainage, planning, land use. The difference between a shower and a flood is not in the sky — it’s under our feet.
It’s easier to blame the climate than to fix a sewer. Politicians love citing “record rainfall” because clouds can’t vote. But rainfall intensity doesn’t explain why an airport runway becomes a swimming pool. Climate change is the amplifier, but the tune is ours — out of scale, out of rhythm. Ironically, the same leaders who sign climate accords also sanction projects that suffocate rivers. Nature cries louder because we keep muting our responsibilities.
The Final Irony
We call floods natural calamities. But what’s natural about storm drains filled with plastic, or embankments that collapse because they were built on contracts, not conscience? What’s natural about silting rivers after illegal sand mining?
Calling them “acts of God” is convenient — it absolves humans of accountability. Yet, gods never approved of malls on riverbeds. The final irony is how we seek divine help with flood relief while ignoring the science of prevention. We pray after drowning, but plan before encroaching. Until India rewrites its relationship with water, rivers will remain auditors, presenting their bills every monsoon. And each year, the interest rate of negligence keeps rising.
Image credits : ANI & PTI
NehaScope 
Every monsoon, headlines scream the same two words: “Nature’s fury.” But let’s be honest — rain is nature, disaster is us. Floods don’t come from the sky, they come from our greed, our planning boards, and our bulldozers. The rivers simply deliver the invoice.
What we call a natural calamity is often a very predictable consequence. What drowns us is not water, but memory loss — forgetting where the ponds, drains, and floodplains once were. Ironically, rainfall is free; the damage costs trillions. And each year, the bill gets bigger while accountability gets smaller.
When Cities Become Swamps by Choice
Take Gurugram, our self-proclaimed “Millennium City.” It dreams in glass towers and expressways, yet drowns every year in ankle-deep puddles. Why? Because every waterbody it had — ponds, lakes, drainage channels — was quietly erased and reborn as real estate. Rainfall isn’t the enemy here. Rainfall is innocent. The true culprit wears a builder’s helmet.
The irony? People now buy homes named after what was destroyed: “Lake View Residency” on a vanished lake, “Green Valley Apartments” on a buried wetland. The more a city builds, the less it breathes. Bengaluru’s IT capital status means nothing when tech parks sit under water like forgotten aquariums. Mumbai’s dream city narrative turns to nightmare every July. And Delhi, always ambitious, tries to outdo them all with flyovers over waterlogged underpasses.
The Himalayas Are Crumbling — And We Cheer
Uttarakhand, Himachal, Sikkim: the mountains cry in landslides and swollen rivers, but we still drill tunnels for hydropower and cut forests for highways. Projects are branded “green energy” even as they bulldoze fragile slopes. It’s a cruel irony — we fight climate change with the very dams that magnify its disasters.
Tourists take selfies at swollen rivers while locals bury their dead. Roads marketed as “all-weather connectivity” collapse in the first storm. The Himalayas were always fragile, but never this wounded. Concrete doesn’t just block rivers; it blocks wisdom. What’s worse is how governments celebrate ribbon-cutting ceremonies while ignoring the landslide warnings written in every crack of the earth.
A Tale of Two Investments
India spends billions on bullet trains, airports, and smart cities, but stormwater drains and flood forecasting systems struggle for crumbs. The paradox? A week of floods can wipe out more jobs than a year of recession, yet no finance minister counts it in the budget.
Consider this: a single metro project’s cost could fund the cleaning of hundreds of city drains, yet drains don’t win elections. Corporate boardrooms discuss GDP growth but ignore flood damage that silently eats the same GDP. Urban floods don’t just kill people; they kill productivity, schooling days, and small businesses. Flood resilience is seen as expense, not investment — until the water enters the minister’s own bungalow. That’s when relief funds suddenly arrive.
Development’s New Dictionary
We’ve perfected doublespeak.
What we call progress, rivers call murder.
And the dictionary keeps expanding. Demolition of villages is “resettlement.” Illegal mining is “resource extraction.” River taming is “modern engineering.” The vocabulary sounds progressive but hides violence against ecology. The language of development sanitizes the crime, making citizens believe they are victims of fate, not of policy. Irony lies in how carefully words are chosen, even as water carelessly floods homes.
Who Gets Drowned, Who Gets Away
Floods are democratic in rainfall, but elitist in destruction. The poor live closest to riverbanks, nallahs, and low-lying colonies. They pay with their homes and lives. The rich complain of traffic jams and property damage — but go back to apartments built on stolen wetlands. Everyone knows, yet no one stops.
A slum dweller gets blamed for “illegal encroachment” when his hut is washed away, but a mall on the same floodplain is called “urban development.” Disaster reporting counts the poor in body bags, while the rich count insurance claims. Even relief camps mirror inequality — some get tarpaulin, others get hotel discounts. Floods expose not just broken drains, but broken justice. And year after year, the same cycle repeats like déjà vu under water.
Climate Change Is the Amplifier, Not the Music
Yes, global warming makes rainfall more extreme. But what decides whether 10 cm of rain is an inconvenience or a catastrophe? Drainage, planning, land use. The difference between a shower and a flood is not in the sky — it’s under our feet.
It’s easier to blame the climate than to fix a sewer. Politicians love citing “record rainfall” because clouds can’t vote. But rainfall intensity doesn’t explain why an airport runway becomes a swimming pool. Climate change is the amplifier, but the tune is ours — out of scale, out of rhythm. Ironically, the same leaders who sign climate accords also sanction projects that suffocate rivers. Nature cries louder because we keep muting our responsibilities.
The Final Irony
We call floods natural calamities. But what’s natural about storm drains filled with plastic, or embankments that collapse because they were built on contracts, not conscience? What’s natural about silting rivers after illegal sand mining?
Calling them “acts of God” is convenient — it absolves humans of accountability. Yet, gods never approved of malls on riverbeds. The final irony is how we seek divine help with flood relief while ignoring the science of prevention. We pray after drowning, but plan before encroaching. Until India rewrites its relationship with water, rivers will remain auditors, presenting their bills every monsoon. And each year, the interest rate of negligence keeps rising.
Image credits : ANI & PTI
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