The Surya river has been a part of our lives ever since 2004, when my husband Ravi began to farm a plot of land in Dahanu in Maharashtra’s Palghar district. We have seen its ebbs and flows for more than two decades so we were not unduly worried when it began to rise almost to the level of our farm on July 23, after three days of unusually heavy rains.
We had no inkling of the ordeal that lay in store for us. Around noon, the Surya crashed through the fences, cascaded through our farm and swept all our rice crops away.
For over five hours that day, the waters swirled furiously around our house before gradually abating.
A few minutes before the water entered the farm, our neighbour, Hemant Gharat, his wife, Hema and their three children, ran into our farm. “The water’s coming,” they yelled as they fled the water rushing into their home.
A little later, their house collapsed.
At the same time, our neighbour, the filmmaker Praveen Kumar, was stuck on the terrace of his house with a visitor as the river swamped his house and submerged his car. The mobile network stopped working so he could not communicate with us.
He had, however, managed to call the...
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