in my childhood days, every year my village used to be flooded by a nearby river… it was like an yearly event… a small river named Baniyadaha, came out of Torsa was flowing next to our village… people who lives by the river used to leave their house and take shelter in village high school … most of the families lived together in the class rooms or our school… i remember we did not have any brick-cement-concrete house then… it was made by earthen soils… every year after the flood i used see my grand mother and mom making up the house again… and then comes autumn…. durga puja… we used to gear up with something new; leaving behind everything … we used to make banana-tree-boats to ferry from one place to another within the village … all in all it never become so harmful to all of us… it was kind of flushing out all evil through-out the year and start a new beginning… we were kind of OK with this no-so-harmful event every year … we used to enjoy those days …
I also remember the 1993 flood in north bengal … i just passed my matriculation that time and came to Kolkata for higher study… when i went back to my home , it was just water everywhere… roads were immersed, village after village marooned with flood… i had learnt that was a man-made incident…alipurduar and coochbehar district was worst affected, people left their home, cattle etc and came on the road… just to get a place where they can stay at night … really very much disturbing …

… and this time, it was above and beyond my imagination…

benal village, bagalkot district, north karnataka
the geographical location is washed away from the map now… a small tiny village hardly had 40/50 houses and families… but now there is no trace …

it took 16 long hours to reach the place ! … and by the time we reached there, many of the villagers went to field for work…