Ebb and Flow

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              "text": "Roots of a tree exposed after being submerged in flooded land for a prolonged period, resulting in ground soil erosion.",
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              "text": "A submerged tree stands out during high tide.",
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              "text": "The thatched roofs on Mousuni island are low lying, to resist the strong cyclonic winds from blowing them away.",
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              "text": "Mousuni Island is one of the frontier islands at the edge of Bay of Bengal and is prone to ecological disasters, often owing to rising sea levels.",
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              "text": "Fallen twigs and branches have been used to fence the walls of a mud hut.",
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              "text": "For the people of the Sundarbans, life is inevitably associated with the sea, with fishing being the main source of livelihood.",
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              "text": "An old man along the extremely vulnerable coast of Baliara in Mosuni Island looking at tracts of construction ravaged by tidal waves.",
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              "text": "A boy in Mousuni Island gets a haircut from his father.",
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              "text": "A daily labourer toils in his field to plant a deep tube well, in search of ground water for domestic consumption.",
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              "text": "The coastline at Baliara is dotted with wooden planks and sandbags in order to prevent salt water from inundating coastal land.",
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              "text": "The wooden pier at the Bagdanga ghat that connects Mousuni Island to the nearest village, Namkhana, in West Bengal.",
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              "text": "A woman walking past the mud embankments with a bottle of water. One of the major problems of salt-water inundation is lack of potable water.",
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              "text": "The landscape in Mousuni is mostly mud huts with thatched or mud-tiled roofs, which are extremely vulnerable to cyclonic winds and tidal waves.",
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              "text": "Over the years, repeated attempts at making effective embankments to prevent inundation have failed due to the intensity of the tidal waves and the rising level of water.",
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              "text": "The evening ferry leaving the Dakshin Durgapur ferry ghat and moving towards Mousuni Island.",
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A narrow wooden jetty held itself above the water, partially submerged at the end. Neatly dotting the makeshift landing stage were people waiting for the wooden country boat to dock. This is the only means of commute for the Mousuni islanders to the mainland. The coastal embankments had breached and every nook was flooded. This was among the first photographs I took when I reached the tiny island near Namkhana in West Bengal, situated in the Ganges Delta, on a wooden trawler boat myself, during the onset of the rainy season in 2018. Little did I know that the monsoon would be one of the fiercest of the last decade, and never did I imagine that my life too would become intertwined with this ebb and flow of floods. I returned to the Sundarbans twice every month between 2018 and 2019, sometimes losing my way only to find a completely new landscape.