I stepped out of the hotel yesterday morning and for a long time sat under a balcony watching the rain pour down ceaselessly. The effect was like buckets being emptied in endless succession. I remember fifteen years ago in Bangalore, pushing my scooter through water that was waist deep. I lost my shoes, the scooter had to be repaired. I remember the hot bath when I came home, the pleasure in washing the mud off my body.

The rain waters on the roads in Kolkata did not reach waist level though some people did have to wade through waters half way up to their knees. A baby was washed away while their family slept on a narrow platform on a slighter higher level. Taxis refused to bring my colleagues doing the UEA writing workshop and one girl wrote of wanting to cry on the side of the road as she could find no transport. Another girl doing the workshop could not meet her husband who had flown in specially for their wedding anniversary.

What is it that has changed in India? People speak of modernity, it is a word thrown around in conversations;  women smoking in groups, torn jeans, swanky malls, high-rises, swimming pools, conversations in English. The news about the baby who died that night had a small mention among all the other reports. Where is the modernity I ask when a sleeping baby can float away in the night and no one gives voice to the loss of his parents- these pavement dwellers in the city of joy?