City residents need to be taught to love their waterbodies

The floods of 2015 was the very first time I had to move away from the house I was born into, as it was filling up with sewage water.

- ANAHATA SUNDARMURTHY

The floods of 2015 was the very first time I had to move away from the house I was born into, as it was filling up with sewage water. Back then, the stretch from Boat Club Road to the Music Academy did not have stormwater drains. That hasn't changed even now. Rainwater entered into sewage systems and raised the overall water level to what was an all-time high then.

At the time, I was a student of the arts at Stella Maris College, but the floods meant that I could not access the studio space on campus for a significant amount of time. Many artists' studios had to close too, and all major galleries had shut down. There was little to no activity and zero governmental support for artisans and craftspersons to get by.