It is impossible for any of us to date the videos that start to appear online whenever the first rain hits our cities. Where this happens is irrelevant, be it Bombay, Bangalore, or Patna, because the nature of what we see is strikingly similar: submerged automobiles, stranded cyclists, and scores of men and women drenched to the bone, huddling under makeshift shelters for safety. It’s as if someone, somewhere, has a whole bank of them and starts to share them as posts about petrichor trickle in.

We can’t date those videos because they could belong to any year between 1990 and 2025. And we forward them to each other with grim satisfaction because they feel like mementos of the collective trauma that millions of Indians must accept each year.

The headlines don’t seem to change much either. I have read them time and again for as long as I can remember, and no one I know can declare the year in which they appear with certainty. Consider these samples as proof: ‘Heavy rain disrupts power supply’; ‘Over 200 buildings declared dangerous for living’; ‘IMD issues red alert’; ‘Rain brings flooding and traffic woes’; ‘Roof collapse takes death toll to six.’ See what I mean? They could be from the 1990s, or from last week. You wouldn’t know because of how often you have seen them, too.