How can a story of lives being lived on the edge of precarity be told? Perhaps only by those who have lived them. Flood in the Basti does exactly this, offering us an unflinching yet tender portrayal of communities in bastis, where floods are recurring calamities folded into everyday life.
The book is remarkable for its intense subjectivity—characters and their perspectives remain at the centre. The children’s gaze anchors the narrative and illustrations, allowing readers to inhabit their worlds with immediacy and intimacy. Each of the three stories opens with a moment of ordinary life abruptly pierced—a sky darkening, a mother shaking children awake, sound tearing through sleep. In the lives of these children, calamity arrives without warning, indifferent to rest or routine. We see not just the struggle and helplessness but also moments of quick thinking, resilience, and even humour amid crises. Joy is not erased, but it is not romanticized.
The translator’s decision to leave words like gundi, mundi, murgi, and naala untranslated keeps the text rooted in its world. This choice reminds us that these stories cannot be neatly relocated elsewhere.
The first illustration is of a girl looking up at red clouds, her eyes taking in the signs of what is to come. As the stories unfold, it is through the children’s gaze that we witness the flood. The final illustration, of a girl looking up at the sky, extends this act of seeing, holding within it the paradox of children who possess great inner strength yet must endure calamities far beyond their control.
At its heart, the book asks scathing questions. Why do bastis flood? Why must certain communities always bear the brunt of systemic neglect and injustice? Without offering easy solutions, it indicts the structures that keep survival precarious, even as it honours the everyday endurance of its people.
Flood in the Basti is an important book—for all those who need to reckon with inequality and the truths submerged in our cities, and for those who don’t.