I spent some of last week in a friend's living room in Bengaluru, working, playing with her baby, listening to discussions about bleaching powder and pressure washers (as I learned, these are machines that use high pressure water jets to clean surfaces).

At some point the doorbell rang. An elderly gentleman and a middle-aged woman stood outside. They had come to collect two power washers. The man's house in Kerala was on the river's edge and they were going to check it. Through the network of connections that have been building fast on social media for Kerala flood relief efforts, they had offered to carry two power washers with them. A few hours later, a slender woman, who looked 18, but was perhaps 24, arrived. I was informed that she had organised local delivery services for intra-city transport of supplies, as that that had been turning into a problem. We helped her load into her car five washers, which she was dropping off to a collection centre for further transportation to Kerala.