It’s called doomscrolling, that constant consumption of news and information that leads to fear or anxiety. And yet, the more time I spend online these days, the more it’s beginning to feel like the norm rather than an exception. Much of the previous month, for instance, felt like a series of reports about an apocalypse. I refer not to the genocide we aren’t allowed to call a genocide, but the wildfires that reduced entire neighbourhoods in Los Angeles to smouldering ruins.

A whole lot of experts have been weighing in on what this will cost America in monetary terms, because that is the only measure that matters there, but all I could think about was Bombay, and how this city would cope in the event of a similar occurrence. It sounds like unnecessary pessimism, until one accepts that there have been enough warning signs issued to us already.