Come Hell or High Water

THE MUSI RIVER is not visible from Noorjehan Begum’s home, and not for the usual reasons. Bapu Ghat, the Hashimnagar neighbourhood where she stays, comes early enough in the river’s course through Hyderabad that it is not yet clogged with crumpled plastic and domestic refuse. A 50-metre slope—dotted with a freshly constructed temple and occasional knots of trees—separates the home from the river. Her house, on a plot of around a hundred and eighty square metres, now split between three families, each having a small bedroom, hall and kitchen, was built by her father-in-law before her husband was born.

Three generations of wear and tear had necessitated renovations last year, for which the family still owes Rs 9 lakh. Signs of the makeover were everywhere, from the warm blue paint outside to the fresh wallpaper in the drawing room where we sat, when I visited in December 2024. Three generations of women busied themselves around me, each telling me how their life had fallen apart over the past months. In September, a few men had arrived from the revenue department. Noorjehan had heard that they were conducting a survey after Revanth Reddy, the chief minister of Telangana, had ordered a river restoration project. But the survey had already been completed, they were told, by drones that had flown overhead some months prior.

The officials simply scrawled a bright “RBX” in red paint, beside their door. In Hyderabad’s jumble of administrative acronyms, that stands for “River Bed Extreme”—dwellings within the riverbed flood zone—and Noorjehan knew exactly what sentence was awaiting her family. In the poorer neighbourhoods that line the Musi’s bank, RBX had become an increasingly common, if quickly disappearing, sign. Buildings that bore it were soon demolished by municipal authorities. That month alone, nearly six hundred structures had been tagged. A few hours after the men left, the family received a letter from the revenue department, which asked them to vacate their house in 48 hours.

“For the last forty years, there’s never been any water here,” Noorjehan said. “Even when they released water from Osman Sagar reservoir, or during heavy rains, water only reached the temple side, not here. If water had ever reached, we would’ve left ourselves. Now, suddenly, they say water will come and break houses—that’s traumatic. Very traumatic.”