Yellow school buses stood stranded in brown, rain-filled roads. At Subhash Chowk, water rose around vehicles as traffic disappeared into the monsoon chaos. Inside at least 12 school buses, children waited for hours while parents struggled to reach them. Elsewhere, commuters waded through knee-deep water as familiar roads turned into temporary rivers.

This was Gurugram on Monday, 24 August, after the city received around 75 mm of rain between 8 am and 5 pm. Sohna Road, Rajiv Chowk, IFFCO Chowk, Sheetla Mata Road and parts of Old Gurugram were among the areas badly affected. By Tuesday, the administration had advised schools to move classes online and offices to work from home.

For a city known for glass towers, sprawling offices and luxury housing, the sight raises a familiar question: why does Gurugram struggle so much when the rain comes?

The answer may lie not just in its drains, but in what existed before them.

Before the glass towers, there were fields

In the 1960s, Gurgaon was a much smaller town, surrounded by agricultural land and villages. Farming shaped everyday life, while open fields, ponds and natural drainage channels gave rainwater room to move and seep into the ground.

Then the city began changing.

Maruti’s arrival in 1981 brought industry and jobs. From the 1990s, private developers transformed agricultural land into housing colonies, commercial spaces and roads. The IT boom........

© The Better India