Nazma Khatun, 14 Barpeta district She was only four, Nazma Khatun remembers. The Beki river, which surrounds Majidbhita char, the riverine island where she lives in Assam`s Barpeta district, had reached right up to the foot of her bed, where she and her mother Shahnaaz Parbin lay that afternoon. “I had never seen the water so close,” recalls Nazma, her memory still vivid 10 years later. As her mother napped, Nazma crawled to the edge of the bed, tied to four poles to raise it above the ground — the only “safe” space in the inundated home. “I reached out to touch the water, and fell right in.” The splash woke up her mother, who scooped her out just in time. Two years back, her cousin`s...
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