Nepal flood reiterates that water can give both life and death

There is something innately frightening about water. There is a pent-up power, a latent fury, an inexorability about it. And the mid-week glacial avalanche that briefly dammed a Himalayan river and then burst it, triggering a deadly mudslide from Tibet that devastated parts of northern Nepal, just reinforced my lifelong fear of water. Much like the 2004 tsunami devastation forever coloured my impression of sparkling sandy beaches and 'serene' ocean vistas.

Swimming pools, cascading fountains and rain-shower stalls in bathrooms are just about as much as my nerves can take when it comes to water. It is, of course, hard to imagine that the liquid that sits so demurely in a glass or in a bottle can morph into such a terrifying avatar when roiling down a mountain gorge or pounding against a shore during a storm. This Jekyll and Hyde quality of water makes it surely one of the most deceptive of nature's elements.

My own travails with the seepage in our south Delhi home is emblematic of the relentlessness of water. One corner of our basement sprouts a large damp patch no matter how many times the area is scanned, grouted and plugged. A tiny crack is invariably missed, and the water works its way in once again. This vexatious cat and mouse game has been going on for the past 20 years. In this case water's implacability is not frightening but it certainly is frustrating.


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Indeed, if that menacing damp patch influenced my opinion of water in any other form than contained peacefully in a receptacle, the videos going around for the past two days of idyllic Himalayan valleys and even a solid concrete immigration building being swept away by 30-foot-high walls of debris-charged water in the blink of an eye simply reinforce my fear. Can there be a more eloquent warning from Nature about the need to respect her tremendous force?

Once upon a time "floods" were something we Indians associated with rural areas: crops destroyed and villages drowned by monsoon swelled rivers. Our geography books invariably mentioned the Huangho or Yellow River being called "China's Sorrow" as its devastating floods killed millions of people down the millennia. But now floods are a city phenomenon too, with rainfall-induced urban inundation further demonstrating the destructive potential of water.

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Yet humans continue to build concrete jungles, dodge regulations to conserve and recharge water and dam rivers for our energy and irrigation needs. In fact, every nation with the requisite wherewithal does much the same, to fulfil the aspirations of their people. Everyone loves the "beauty of Nature" and we Indians sing paeans to our rivers and seas in the national anthem, but do we truly respect these powerful and essentially unpredictable repositories of water?

The latest "liquid concrete" flow of water from the Himalayas has far too many precedents in India and Nepal; what happens on the Chinese side during such events is hard to gauge but it must be just as bad. It seems we are wilfully ignoring Nature's repeated signals to slow down, accept the realities of our fragile eco-systems and manage expectations accordingly. 'Development' cannot exclude those who live in remote areas but nor should it endanger them.

Ironically, water gives both life and death; it all depends on which avatar is invoked by our actions. These days, efforts to harness the life-giving aspects of water often have the opposite effect. Just look at how many irrigation and hydel power projects get destroyed each year by catastrophes like glacial avalanches or cloud bursts. Are we at fault or Nature? We have our compulsions and She has hers. Do we have the will or inclination to modify our actions?