Cities Drowning in Greed's Flood

The rains of May 2025 unleashed a merciless reckoning on India's urban giants—Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru—turning their streets into raging rivers, their homes into swamps, and their dreams into tragedies.

- PRABHU CHAWLA

Homes were swept away. Uprooted by rain rage, venerable trees collapsed on cars, killing people. In Bengaluru, a young boy stepped out of a bus and was sucked into a manhole by swirling waters. In Delhi, a wall collapsed and killed laborers.

On May 2, the capital was battered by over 80 mm of rain in mere hours, marking the city's wettest May since 1901. Minto Bridge, Azadpur, and areas near Delhi Airport's Terminal 1 submerged, stranding commuters and damaging vehicles; a car was seen swallowed by water at Minto Road. Mumbai, hit with 104 mm of rain in a single hour at Nariman Point on May 26, saw the Mithi River—choked by encroachments—spill over, flooding Kurla and suspending Metro Line 3 services.

Flooding claimed eight lives in Kurla, including 15-year-old Ayesha, whose family shop was destroyed, their livelihood washed away. Bengaluru, grappling with incessant downpours, watched its IT corridors like Whitefield drown, with an X post decrying a "tech city sinking in filth".

Ironically, Mumbai can move billions of dollars across continents in seconds. But its billionaire residents living in multimillion-dollar condos can't move from one street to another during the monsoons. Delhi can host the G20 Summit over 3 sq km, but its residents must wade through foul water spewed from decrepit sewage systems. Bengaluru's Vrishabhawathi river is a black, toxic stream—80 percent of the city's 1,800 million liters of sewage per day is untreated. It can connect the world, but not disconnect from despair. An X post lamented, "IT parks gleam, but floods expose our shame."

Even after 75 years, over 70 percent of Indian cities don't have a proper sewage and garbage disposal system. The infamous public works departments, which look after roads and civil works, are now the public's worst demon.