There’s been a heaviness sitting in my chest since this morning. I couldn’t shake it. And I don’t think I’m the only one.
The videos coming out of the Nepal-Tibet border aren’t just visuals of a flood. They’re visuals of homes that no longer exist, of families torn apart in a matter of hours, of everything someone spent a lifetime building — gone. Reports are saying over 350 people have died, and more than 280 Indians are still missing. But if I’m honest, I don’t fully trust those numbers. In situations like this, the real toll almost always turns out to be far worse than what gets reported first.
And somewhere in between scrolling through those clips and reading the news, one thought wouldn’t leave me alone:
How does anyone look at this and think, “this isn’t my problem”?
Because I think that mindset — that quiet, comfortable distance — might actually be the bigger problem we’re facing as a society.
Nepal Has Never Really Felt “Foreign” to Us
If you’re Indian, you probably know what I mean when I say Nepal doesn’t feel like a separate country. Not really.
People move back and forth across that border every single day. Families have relatives on both sides. Our histories, our festivals, our spiritual roots — they’re tangled up together in ways that go back centuries. And for crores of Hindus, Nepal isn’t just a neighbouring nation. It’s home to Pashupatinath.
So when a disaster like this hits Nepal, I can’t just file it away as “something happening elsewhere.” It doesn’t sit right with me. Suffering shouldn’t need a passport before we’re allowed to feel it.
The Numbers Never Tell You the Real Story
Every disaster comes with a scoreboard — deaths, missing persons, homes destroyed, families displaced. And yes, those numbers matter. But they also flatten something that shouldn’t be flattened.
Behind every single figure is a person. A father who isn’t coming home. A mother searching through rubble. A child who fell asleep in one life and woke up in a completely different one. Someone still standing by a door, waiting for a face that hasn’t shown up yet.
That’s the part no report can capture. And usually, we only understand the true scale of a tragedy weeks or months after the cameras have moved on.
We’ve Stood Here Before
This isn’t new territory for us, unfortunately.
We watched Punjab go underwater. We watched Assam suffer through floods that displaced entire communities. Time and again, nature has reminded us how fragile the ground beneath us really is.
And every single time, the same question resurfaces: what can we actually do?
Sometimes the honest answer is simple — it starts with refusing to look away.
Why Does the Ice Keep Melting?
Here’s something that’s been on my mind constantly: why do these floods keep happening? Glaciers melt. Ice that’s sat frozen for centuries starts giving way. And why is that happening? Because the planet is heating up. Global warming.
We’ve all heard that phrase so many times in school that it stopped sounding urgent. It became just another line to memorize for an exam. But it isn’t a chapter in a textbook anymore. It’s the reason a family in Nepal doesn’t have a roof tonight.
The cruelest part? The people paying the highest price for climate change are usually the ones who contributed the least to causing it. That should bother all of us a lot more than it does.
Disasters Don’t Check Passports
We like to draw lines on maps — countries, states, cities, borders. But floods don’t respect any of that. A flood doesn’t ask where you were born. An earthquake doesn’t care what language you speak.
Covid taught us that the hard way — it came for everyone, everywhere, no exceptions. Natural disasters work the same way. That’s exactly why empathy can’t be something we switch on only when the tragedy happens in our own backyard.
If humans stop thinking about other humans, I genuinely believe humanity itself starts to erode.
Raghav Sharma Donates for Nepal Flood Relief — India Stands With Nepal
At Supertalks, I’ve always believed a platform isn’t just for conversations — it comes with responsibility too.
We were able to extend support during the Assam floods. We did the same during the Punjab floods. And now, watching what’s unfolding in Nepal, there was no question in my mind about what needed to happen next.
That’s why Raghav Sharma is donating a significant portion of the proceeds from our upcoming podcast release towards Nepal flood relief.
It won’t undo the damage. It won’t bring back what’s been lost. But it’s my way — our way — of saying something I believe needs to be said out loud right now:
You are not alone.
Small Actions Add Up to Something Real
It’s easy to convince yourself that one person’s contribution is too small to matter. One donation. One share. One honest conversation. One act of support.
But disasters were never solved by one person doing everything. They’re overcome when thousands — sometimes millions — of ordinary people each decide to do something.
So if you’re able to, support a credible relief organisation working on the ground in Nepal right now. If you can’t donate, share verified information instead of scrolling past. If you spot misinformation, don’t give it oxygen. And more than anything — don’t let yourself go numb to someone else’s pain just because it’s happening on the other side of a border.
This Is the Real Test
We throw the word “humanity” around a lot — in speeches, in captions, in conversations that don’t cost us anything. But moments like this actually test whether we believe in it.
The real test isn’t how we behave when life is easy. It’s what we do when someone else is drowning — literally.
Can we pause? Can we care? Can we help, even a little?
Tomorrow, this could be a different country. One day, it could be closer to home. But today, it’s Nepal. And today, Nepal needs to know it isn’t standing alone.
Nepal is not an outsider. Pashupatinath is ours. Nepal’s pain is our pain.
India stands with Nepal.
