Anger on the banks of the Musi

Thulasi Chandu, a journalist who runs her own YouTube channel, is one of the 417 occupants of the residential complex, Madhu Park Ridge, at Langar Houz. From her balcony, she gets a view of southern Hyderabad: the imposing 12th century Golconda Fort on one side and a sweeping view of greenery, which slowly gives way to a rising concrete jungle.

Down the slope of the plateau on which Madhu Park Ridge stands, the rivulet Moosa, a tributary of the Musi river, meanders through the landscape for 11.2 . Its course from the still-green Ananthagiri hills into Hyderabad is regulated by the Osman Sagar reservoir at the city’s edge, built after the catastrophic floods of 1908. On a closer look, however, what flows through Moosa is a dark, almost opaque stream of sewage and effluents discharged from surrounding establishments.