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Why did the tiger sleep in the bed? Because his grandad slept in the same high ground when there was flood a few decades ago. This (1/20) 
is probably the image that is going to define this year's flooding in the Brahmaputra valley. Rewind about 10 years, I spent about (2/20)
six whole solid months researching for a series of stories that I did for the Business Standard on the Brahmaputra basin. (The (3/20)
links to the stories don't work anymore, since the website is behind a paywall now :( ) It was a very intensive period of research (4/20)
back when there was not even much material available online. Lots of help from organisations such as South Asia Network on Dams, (5/20)
Rivers and People which had a treasure trove of research material. And then personally travelling to the region and meeting a whole (6/20)
bunch of local experts, including Prof Goswami from Guwahati University, whose research literally has the only historical water (7/20)
flow data available on the Brahmaputra and its tributaries. It was such a rich and fascinating landscape to travel through. But (8/20)
wherever I looked I could only see the conflict of three forces that shape this region - geology, man and the wild. There is (9/20)
perhaps no other place on the planet where these three meet with such intensity, density and violence. You are talking about (10/20)
probably among the world's most massive seasonal flows of water, one of the densest human inhabited regions and unparalleled (11/20)
biodiversity. How will this play out? Geology - will always win. Water is such a force here, it will inundate and sweep away (12/20)
everything in its path whenever it chooses to. The Brahmaputra plain, will always flood. Man - can't fight geology, not here, no (13/20)
sir. There will never be an engineer who will who will tame the geological forces here. All that can be done is occupy the high (14/20)
ground while you watch the seasonal flood carry away your annual toils. Wild - has lived and adapted to the geology here. It is in (15/20)
the DNA here to head to higher ground at the first sniff of monsoon winds. Is it more comfortable now that higher ground now has a (16/20)
bed to offer? The tragedy of India is inertia. This story of the Brahmaputra is known from the time of folklore to modern (17/20)
bureaucracy. But nothing can shake us awake. The population of this region has probably tripled since independence. The size of (18/20)
the basin will always remain the same. The wild has probably shrunk by a factor of 3x. The flood waters will recede soon. They (19/20)
always do. Lines will be drawn in the fresh silt again. (20/20)
