From the terrace of my family’s 250-year-old house in a southern Indian village, an eight-hour drive from Goa, I gaze at the vast expanse of water stretching to the horizon. It is a beautiful sight – the water is calm, cormorants skim its surface, a fisherman’s coracle bobs in the distance.

Appearances, however, can be deceptive.

Submerged in the water, which is essentially the flooded Krishna river, are mango, guava and pomegranate orchards. Entire towns are underwater. It is August, the tail-end of monsoon, and the river is at its fullest. In just a few short months, the water will recede, exposing waterlogged farmland where maize, millets, cotton, oilseeds, and sugarcane were once cultivated.

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