Deluge and Denial

Kolkata has once again found itself submerged ~ literally and figuratively ~ beneath a torrent of rain and the weight of its own urban vulnerabilities. In less than a day, more than 250 millimetres of rain transformed roads into streams, disrupted train services, and left entire neighbourhoods wading through knee-deep water.

At least 10 lives were lost, most to electrocution, a grim reminder that the city’s ageing electrical grid and fragile drainage systems are ill-equipped to handle the new extremes of weather. The timing could not be crueller. The floods struck days before Durga Puja, the city’s most beloved festival, when elaborate temporary pandals come up in every locality and millions of residents take to the streets in celebration.

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Many of these pandals now sit wat