By Sibtain Shafi

In the first week of September this year, rain began over Srinagar as a slow, dark evening drizzle and soon thickened into a relentless sheet that drummed on streets.

Rooftops rattled under the pounding water. Lights reflected in puddles that grew into streams along alleys. Houseboats on the Jhelum bobbed and groaned.

Ashiq Ahmad, a man who has lived on the river all his life, stood on his deck, tying ropes to a sagging poplar and moving furniture to higher floors.

“The water should have spread into the marshes,” he said, his eyes fixed on the black surface climbing the moorings. “Now it comes straight for us.”

It came all night. Side streams overflowed, and the Jhelum crept over its banks. Between August 22 and September 4, Srinagar received nearly three times its

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