By Kollengode S Venkataraman, (September 2026)
For those who are curious, below is the map of the Kosi River, its flow route, and how its course has changed by nearly 180 kilometers over the last 200 years. The river descends from Nepal into India’s Bihar state. These changes have occurred as the Kosi River descended into Bihar from Nepal, where it is known as Sapta Koshi (or Kosi with seven tributaries) in Nepal:
The roughly 180 km is the distance between Pune and Mumbai, Chennai and Villupuram, Delhi and Mathura, or New York City and Philadelphia. This is a fricking HUGE distance for a river to change its course over a short period of 200 years — short in geological terms. In Nepal, the shift in the river’s course is only 20 kilometers, still a significant distance.
Kosi is called Bihar’s River of Sorrow in India because of periodically erratic and unpredictable flooding during monsoon. I remember in my young days seeing INR — Indian News Review — newsreels in black-and-white, shown in film theaters, about monsoon flooding in Bihar. With slow, melancholic shehnai music in the background conveying pathos, the Tamil voice-over would start with the caption பிஹாரில் (not பீகாரில்) வெள்ளம்!
The river involved in the recent Nepal landslide and floods is the Bhote Kosi River, a tributary of the Sapta Kosi River in Nepal, with seven tributaries (sapta in Sanskrit means seven): Arun Koshi, Sun Kosi, Dudh Kosi, Tama Kosi, Bhote Kosi, Indravati, and Likhu Khola
So, flooding and the rivers changing course in the Nepal/Bihar area are well known to the locals. It is there in the collective living memory of ordinary people, if not in textbooks or the Bihar and Nepali babus, who are transferred every few years in their jobs.
And the name Kosi itself has a fascinating origin: Kosi is a local modification of the Sanskrit name Kowshik. Kowshik morphed into Kosi, like Gowtama morphing to Gotama. Like the Dravidian Tamils corrupting மஹாபாரதம் to the atrocious மகாபாரதம்.
In any case, “Why Kowshik as the name for the river?” is a good question. In the Ramayana, the name Sage Kowshika refers to Vishwamitra, Rama’s teacher, known for his short temper and unpredictability about when he will explode in anger.
So, centuries — maybe millennia ago — natives of the Bihar/Nepal area, where the Ramayana is a living epic even today, named the river Kowshik. Why? Because they observed again and again that nobody could predict how terrible and severe the flooding in the river would be in the monsoon — like Sage Kowshik’s unpredictable temper. And Kowshik morphed into Kosi.
With this history, letting human settlements on the very banks of the Kosi tributaries to attract tourists hugely contributed to the deaths and material loss in the floods. In the absence of these human interference, the episodic landslide/flooding would have caused minimal damage to life and property.
The climate change only added new dimension to the already complex phenomenon. The huge landslide was caused by the glacier collapse (due to warming) further up in Tibet. Over 100 million cubic meters of ice and rocks detached from the bigger glacier and fell down very quickly over 1000 meter vertical drop — numbers that are difficult to comprehend for most mortals — enough to cause a mild earthquake.
Deaths in this year’s floods in Nepal are over1400, and missing over 5000 (reported by Asia Net). Many were European tourists. The material loss is estimated over $3 billion, in a country with $45 billion GDP and 30 million people. Nepal’s per capita GDP is only $1500. Even within South Asia, which is not a prosperous area, Nepal in a poor country. Nepal’s tourism dollars is estimated below 7%% of its GDP.
What is the lesson for Nepalis and the rest of us? Learn to abide by Nature’s ways and design our life and lifestyle, and culture around Nature’s way. In many parts of the world, we have not internalized this simple and important lesson. In big cities in Asia and South and Central America, new settlements evolved haphazardly when internal migrants moved to cities — Karachi, Mumbai, Chennai, Mexico City, Manila… — seeking livelihood. In these cities, they pitched their tents, so to speak, wherever they found open space, often in flood planes or areas earlier known as lakes. The city elites called these places “slums.” Secondly, poorer nations to make the place attractive to tourists throughout the year, built resorts and hotels along the river banks, and ON the river banks as in Nepal and also in India. But Nature eventually wins, and wins with vengeance towards us for not respecting Her.
The best way to see and LEARN how people have designed their lives, lifestyle, and even culture around Nature, is to go and study the Netherlands. In the Netherlands, around 25% of the landmass is below sea level. And another 50% of the landmass is at sea level or 1 meter above sea level. That is, 75% of the landmass is below one meter, with 25% below sea level.
The Dutch have very strict codes on where people can live and where they should not live and develop tourist activities. Their hydrologists’ advice is taken seriously — very, very seriously — by their legislature, government, media, and even insurance companies. Remember, tourism is a big part of the Netherlands’ economy, a country of only 18 million people, with a tourism volume over $100 billion, around 4% of its GDP.
In the wake of the floods, one Nepali girl’s song thanked the people in India for its help. It was quite sentimentally proper, for sure. Maybe everyone — affluent tourists from Europe, Japan, North America included — should also ask her, and every Nepali, to sing another song. This song should be addressed to the Nepali government to prevent human settlement and building tourism-based hotels ON riverbanks. They must leave on and along the river banks open space of a few hundred meters to be decided by hydrologists and geologists. This will reduce, if not altogether prevent, deaths in hundreds and material losses in billions of dollars.
And the affluent American and European tourists — they were 300,000 of them in Nepal among over one million international tourists last year — can create a similar song in Gregorian chant to acknowledge their contribution to the calamity. Their chant will be widely shared in all social and mainstream media in Europe to create an awareness on this issue.
Remember, many touristy destinations in Europe are quite resentful and hostile to tourists flooding their neighborhoods during the season. Their local governments are trying to restrict the tourist volume by increasing or adding new user fees to visitors in creative ways.
And the Nepali Tourism department has to be restrained from going overboard to bring in tourism $$$$s and and from organizing discounted tours during the monsoon season.
This applies to India also to varying degrees. Chennai floods every November-December, and floods in Mumbai’s “low-lying’ area occur as predictably as the annual normal monsoon. These also have the same basic root cause: not respecting Nature. In Chennai, simply renaming old lakes as low-lying areas does not make the old lakes disappear!!!! END