Short Story: Praying for Rain, Drowning in the Floods

In this powerful story, Chitra Gopalkrishnan highlights a calamity in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh, where a coffer dam collapsed in Malana village in Kullu district, in August 2025, laying waste the entire area and claiming many lives, livestock and livelihoods.

“I am sure you can hear the fierce and angry voice of our mother goddess, Ma Parvati, our goddess of the river, as she storms down from heaven, from the Man Talai glacier in the Himalayas,” says Aknil in Kanashi, a language spoken exclusively in his village of Malana in the Kullu district of Himachal Pradesh, a northern Indian state.

We find Aknil’s words unintelligible, yet his use of short sentences charms us, as do the intricate sounds of his language, their burbling rhythms, and his firm yet easy, soft conversational tone. It has the feel of a vivid medium, like music, veering far, direct yet oblique, simple yet philosophical, a way to convey complex ideas that words cannot convey.

It is August 3, 2025, and my cameraman, Mukesh, and I have travelled from New Delhi to report on the collapse of the Malana coffer dam, which occurred during the heavy, unceasing rains of the previous day, resulting in landslides and severe flooding. We know that northern India has experienced the heaviest rainfall in 37 years this monsoon. After flying to Kullu, we have endured a challenging forty-kilometre drive to the flood-ravaged town of Jari in an old, rickety vehicle, driven by a highly reluctant and surly taxi driver whom we have had to persuade for over two hours. We are now trekking to reach Malana, which remains a considerable distance away.