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Until the embankment came up in the Kosi river basin, the mighty river flowed right here, strong and powerful. But after the construction of theses manmade structures, it changed its course and moved farther away. Of course, we seemed to gain many obvious advantages due to the embankment; but the few issues that have cropped up, make us realise that we were much better off before all this construction came up here.

Quite a bit of our village land was acquired under the Kosi project; even the land that we had received as bhoodan , was lost to it. We live on a land where floods were a regular part of our lives and the embankment construction saved us from the constant berating we received from the floods every single year. In the flood season we were as good as marooned by the floodwaters in our village, and finding a small, dry piece of land to cook food was just not possible. So, we build machans , put our stoves over them and cooked on these rickety, makeshift contraptions. For clean, drinking water we travelled by boats to the railway station. Our whole day was spent fighting the floodwaters at every step. And with the rising waters came the fear of snakes, scorpions and other life-threatening animals. In spite of this, the women would bravely wade into the water to collect fodder for the cattle and scavenge all possible vegetables for family meals.