Let's set aside the obvious first: Ninety percent of India submerged in the Indian Ocean last night. Yes, an ocean named after a massive land mass swallowed an entire country. It may as well be true for the other hundred and ninety-five countries on Earth.

But that's inconsequential. My world is in my lap, still, stiff, and white.

I move the strand of hair on Nia's face with my finger and squeeze her cheek. "Please, Nia. Wake up, please!"

She doesn't.

I pat her cheeks, "Nia, please, wake up, please, wake up, beta. I love you. Come on, Nia, watch all the TV you want, keep my mobile, watch Peppa Pig all day. We'll watch it together. Promise. Don't you know I love you, wake up, wake up, wake up..."

She doesn't budge.

Something breaks inside me, pinches, and I can't pull a breath through my sobs.

An arm shakes me by my shoulder. "Sir! We must leave. The water level―"

I turn to the voice, and the man in raincoat steps back, wipes his face, and moves toward the woman crying over three bodies of her family washed ashore.

A siren bellows and my eyes absorb the chaos for the first time. It's a gray deluge, splashing thick needles around me. Drenched faces are looking anxiously towards the sea spreading her arms, some screaming, a few crying, some staring blankly. Bodies are lined up on the street that was supposed to be nearly hundreds of kilometer from the sea. Desperate, puffed cheeks are trying to breathe life into their kin, thrusting chests to wake drowned lives. A wave laps my feet up to the ankle, curls its grip, and threatens to pull me inside. Nia's body flats and slides in.

"No!" I lift Nia and step uphill along a trail of humans running away from the tsunami, or flood, or whatever it is that's eating land. I slip, almost drop Nia, wipe my face, and bury my toe into the mud to find a grip. My shoe gets stuck as I pull out my bare foot and hobble up the hill's highest point.

The view on the other side is grim: water's invaded the land, with only a few hills still above the surface. Scattered rooftops ― the few high risers of Ooty ― are visible over the brown flood, with clusters of crowds occupying every inch of visible land and building roofs.

Is that a naval carrier?
The massive naval warship, estranged far inland, bobs on its side, lists, and cranks in the whirlpool. It's halted by the radio tower, and topples. Metal groans, the visible top of the tower leans, something snaps, and the ship huddles downstream with the broken tower. In its trail are the small things: cars, tree trunks, and innumerable bodies swirling, drifting, stopping, then getting thrown by the current.

They don't matter. Nothing does. Not anymore. I sink to the ground and place Nia's head on my lap. Maybe she's free, finally.

I don't know how it is to sleep in the rain. I would not know. When I wake up, the rain has ceased, and the thick gloom of black clouds is replaced by a few blue spaces in the sky. Nia's still in my lap, sleeping with a strange calm on her face. I try to shift my leg, but it's dead, and I wobble my toes till the buzz settles. Around me, a few are sitting with their knees clasped to their chest, a few leaning on familiar shoulders, and some curled like a fetus on the wet ground.

"How did she...?"

I look up at a face that I immediately know I recognise but can't recall. "She was playing on the street when―"

The woman kneels, places her palm over Nia's face, and slides it over her eyes. "I'm sorry."

I nod.

"She was four?"

"Three." I gulp the rising sob. "Nia is taller for her age. She is... was... Oh! God."

The woman places her palm over mine, squeezes warmth. "She is beautiful." She closes her eyes, and mutters a prayer, holding my hand, her other palm still over Nia's eyes.

I watch the woman's young face, her sharp nose, her round earrings dangling through her black hair. She opens her hazel eyes, wipes a tear, and looks at me.

"Nia is free."

"Thank You."

She rises, turns, and trudges away toward a woman holding a child in her lap. I watch her console the mother, pray for a stranger's loss, and move to the next person, and the next, till she disappears in the crowd. Maybe she lost someone, too, and knows what it feels like.

A ruckus draws my attention, and my gaze follows all other eyes. "Don't you touch my child!" someone shouts, and the woman reappears through the crowd, her eyes low and lips a thin line. She passes next to me, stops, and our eyes meet. I don't know why, but I offer her my arm, and she settles beside me.

"I am sorry," I say.

"No. He's lost a lot today. Grief breaks good people." She lifts her eyes and stares at a opening in the sky.

"May I know your name?"

She looks at me, and her lips move.

"Sorry. I couldn't hear you."

"India," she whispers and looks away.

***