Living the daily rhythms of life in Mumbai, or for that matter in most of Navi Mumbai and Thane, it is possible to be unaware of the extreme and serious situation of drought in most of the districts of Maharashtra. Independent estimates suggest that 31 of the state’s 36 districts have deep drought or drought-like conditions—acute drinking water shortages and agricultural crises, to name a couple—that demand immediate relief measures.

Even the state government acknowledges that more than 20 districts show distress, and the agriculture minister recently termed the situation in Marathwada as “grave”. This could be true of Bengaluru and any of the 177 talukas of the state’s 239 that have been declared as drought-hit. Or of any large city and the rest of the state it sits in.

The disconnect is disconcerting, but it reflects a lot more of what’s not right with city life. Cities are predominantly seen and repeatedly referred to as “economic engines” or “engines of growth” by those with political and economic power; then, they are structured or buffered so that they do not ordinarily suffer from the vicissitudes of nature and climate that ravage millions of lives outside them. Cities are made, almost, as islands unto themselves. So, a drought-like condition in areas barely 100 kilometres from Mumbai does not even register for most Mumbaikars.

In the process of such urbanisation as is now rampant in hitherto rural or peri-urban areas outside large cities, the most proximate example for us being Mumbai 3.0 and Mumbai 4.0, something precious and fundamental to life is........

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