My City Is Under Water

A night and day inside Kolkata’s flood

Image from author herself

It happened in a single night. Just 5 or 6 hours of rain. That was all it took for Kolkata to drown.

I was half-asleep when the sound began. At first, I thought it was another monsoon shower. But the rain didn’t slow down, it only grew angrier. The sky broke open and poured everything it had on us. By midnight, it felt like the city had been swallowed.

Official tweet at 3.02 am from a reputed weather analysing platform (Screenshots from the author)

The numbers came later. News reports said Kolkata recorded 335 mm of rain in a single night. It is the kind of number that doesn’t feel real until you see cars floating, until you see the ground floors of entire neighborhoods vanish, until you hear that ten people died of electrocution while trying to walk through what they thought was just water.

Inside my home, the water crept in first like a whisper, then like a scream. It rushed past the door, filled the tiles, and claimed every chair, every bag, every shoe. The smell of sewage and mud wrapped itself around us. We carried what we could upstairs, barefoot, hearts racing, knowing the ground floor was already gone.

From the balcony, I watched the city lose its shape. Roads became rivers. Buses and taxis stalled, headlights flickering uselessly beneath the water. Rickshaws floated sideways, their wheels turning in vain. Traffic was no longer traffic, just a graveyard of vehicles abandoned in the night. The silence of a halted city was broken only by rain hammering rooftops and neighbors calling out into the dark.

“Switch off your mains, the wires are live!” someone shouted. “Has anyone got candles left?” another asked. Children cried. Old people sat with their heads in their hands. Families pressed together upstairs, all of us waiting, trapped.

Image from author herself

The stories of death spread like the water itself. Ten people gone, electrocuted in the dark. A man walking home. A woman stepping out for groceries. A boy playing too close to a pole. Lives cut short in random, cruel ways. No warning, no chance. Just the city betraying its own people.

And then there were the dogs. The strays that once ran beside rickshaws, barked at tea stalls, wagged their tails at children. They floated past us in silence. Their bodies drifted down the same streets they once guarded, their absence louder than the thunder above.

The rain lasted just a few hours, but it was enough to rip the city apart. By dawn, ground floors were ruined. Books, clothes, photographs — soaked into pulp. Idols from pandals collapsed, their faces still above water, watching the city crumble. The air stank of death and garbage. The water was waist-deep and restless, carrying away whatever it could.

This wasn’t just another storm. This was a reminder of how fragile we are. A single night. Just 5 or 6 hours. And suddenly, everything was gone.

This was around 3PM. Image from author

My city is under water. Ten lives taken. Homes destroyed. Strays lost. And yet, behind every balcony and every upstairs window, people still call out to each other, sharing food, matches, and hope. Kolkata has been broken before, but this one will leave a scar we won’t forget.

When the clouds gather again, we’ll all remember this night. The night the rain fell too hard, too fast, too mercilessly. The night my city stopped breathing.

Image from a news channel (author’s screenshot)

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I’m Urna, a full-time digital marketing manager (and a passionate one at that!) who finds balance and joy through writing here. If you’d like to connect further, you can find me on ***Substack | LinkedIn | Threads| Medium | [Ko-fi](https://ko-fi.com/urnagain2596)***

With love and gratitude, Urna ✨

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