Beyond the Numbers
Disasters are often measured in statistics. And this year, Punjab’s numbers were grim. Thirteen districts battered. More than 2,200 villages submerged. Nearly 2.2 million acres of farmland destroyed.
But numbers can’t tell you what it feels like when water climbs your staircase one step at a time. They don’t capture the sound of buffaloes bellowing before the flood takes them, or the sight of an old woman clutching her steel trunk—the only possession she could save. Statistics, cold and clinical, miss the taste of fear mixed with muddy rainwater.
Lives Interrupted
In Hoshiarpur, a grandmother tied charpoys together to make a raft for her grandchildren. In Fazilka, a farmer dragged his goats onto a tractor, knowing they were the last of his wealth. In Tarn Taran, women waded chest-deep through swirling currents, balancing pots on their heads with children clinging to their waists.
This was Punjab in August 2025: a landscape not only flooded with water but with disrupted lives. Community First
Yet amid the ruin, something else rose. Community. The first responders weren’t uniformed officers or outside convoys—they were ordinary villagers. People hauling each other onto tractor trailers. Neighbors sharing sacks of flour and tins of ghee. Gurdwaras opening their doors before the rain even stopped, rolling out rotis and simmering dal in cauldrons to feed the displaced.
It was messy, improvised, often insufficient. But it was immediate.
NGOs as Anchors
Soon after, more organised relief began. Several NGOs mobilised, including the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the Sukhmani Sewa Society Fazilka, and countless smaller groups. Each brought hands, supplies, and networks of support.
Among them, The Kalgidhar Society, Baru Sahib, anchored the largest-scale operations. With deep roots in Punjab’s countryside through its 130 schools, the Society had both infrastructure and trust. Within days, 15 Akal Academies were converted into relief camps.
And these weren’t basic shelters. They became multipurpose lifelines—warehouses for rations, kitchens for langar, clinics for the sick, even workshops where villagers repaired flood-damaged equipment.
Working Together
The Society didn’t act alone. It worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the National Disaster Response Force, district commissioners, and sub-divisional magistrates. Powered boats were launched into submerged streets. JCBs cleared debris and built temporary embankments.
Thousands of volunteers joined—teachers, students, local residents. Langar kitchens cooked around the clock. Medical teams moved from village to village, treating injuries, vaccinating children, and distributing medicines to stop outbreaks of cholera and typhoid.
The Hardest Part Came Later
But when the waters drained, the real grind began. The flood had left behind not only mud but also danger. Pools of stagnant water bred mosquitoes. Carcasses of cattle, buffaloes, and goats lay rotting in fields. Disease lurked in every corner.
Volunteers of The Kalgidhar Society took on this invisible battle. They dug trenches to drain water. They buried carcasses with lime and salt. They disinfected villages with whatever resources they had. It was exhausting, dirty, and thankless work. But without it, epidemics could have swept through communities already on their knees.
This phase rarely makes headlines, but it saves more lives than dramatic rescues. Rehabilitation: Building Dignity, Not Just Shelter
Once immediate relief was stabilised, attention turned to rehabilitation. And here, too, the Society charted a new path. It began constructing prefabricated homes—safe, quick-to-build structures designed not as temporary tents but as real houses.
These units—one- and two-bedroom designs with kitchens, toilets, and verandahs—gave families not only shelter but dignity. For those who had seen their brick houses collapse or wash away, stepping into a clean, functional home was more than practical. It was psychological recovery. A signal that life could begin again.
Corporate partners like Amazon, Infosys, Nestlé, Sigma Corporation, Indus Valley, Donatekart, and The Better India came forward to sustain these projects, pooling funds and materials. It was a collaboration that extended relief beyond survival into restoration.
The Quiet Strength of Punjab
The world’s attention span is short. Disasters flicker on global screens for a few days before being replaced by the next crisis. But Punjab knows how to carry on when the headlines fade.
Because resilience here isn’t performative. It isn’t a press release. It’s in the farmer in Ajnala offering tea to a journalist from his half-submerged home. It’s in the children who laugh while waiting in line for langar. It’s in the volunteers digging trenches with blistered hands, knowing no one will ever quote their names.
Punjab has never been defined by what it loses. It is defined by what it rebuilds—again and again. More Than Walls
Yes, 13 districts were battered. Yes, more than 2,200 villages lay underwater. Yes, 2.2 million acres of paddy disappeared. But the real story is not only of loss. It is of communities that held each other up when the ground itself gave way.
It is of organisations that saw relief not as charity but as seva—service grounded in humility. It is of a culture that refuses to let despair take the last word.
Punjab is rebuilding homes today. Tomorrow it will rebuild fields. But what it has already rebuilt, even in the darkest hours, is faith—in each other, in resilience, in life.
What Punjab rebuilds isn’t just walls—it’s lives.