When the sky broke, an entire city drowned - and discovered what it truly meant to survive.
On a single night in September 2025, the skies over Bengal unleashed one of the most violent cloudbursts in modern history.
Within hours, Kolkata - the vibrant, chaotic, beloved heart of India's east - was underwater.
Streets became rivers. Homes vanished. Power grids collapsed. And amid the chaos, stories emerged - of fear and loss, but also of courage, compassion, and defiance.
In A City Under Water: The Story of Bengal's Cloudburst, Indranil Mukherjee takes readers through the night the sky broke open - and the days, weeks, and months that followed.
Through meticulous research, vivid reporting, and deeply human storytelling, Mukherjee captures a city's transformation: from catastrophe to reckoning, from helplessness to resilience.
This is not just a story of a flood.
It is a portrait of a civilization standing at the crossroads of climate change, memory, and denial.
It is a reminder that water, once worshipped and feared, is returning to demand attention - and humility.
Blending the intimacy of survivor testimonies with the sweep of history and science, A City Under Water is both a warning and a love letter - to Kolkata, to Bengal, and to every city built on the illusion that it can outlive its geography.
"Water may drown a city, but it cannot drown its spirit."
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