When it comes to the climate change-related displacements, the anguish and resignation of the villagers of Satabhaya- a relatively unknown cluster of villages on the coast of the eastern state of Odisha in India facing the Bay of Bengal- have a lot to tell. The village sat there for 400- 500 years and cohabited with the sea, relying on farming and fishing as their livelihood; until the super cyclone of 1971 brought them devastation, killing about seven hundred and rendering many homeless. Since then, the sea has been eating away at the coastline with every storm and tide, salinizing the fertile lands along the coast over which these villagers have historically depended for their livelihoods. Still, in the face of such ingressions, the villagers clung on- moving their houses every time the sea got closer, not intent on leaving the land that they called Home. The 1990s brought a lull in the frequency of cyclones, but it was short-lived. A super cyclone ravaged the eastern coast of Odisha in 1999, this time, however, although it did not claim any lives at Satabhaya, tall waves battered the shore, gushing into the homes and fields. Suddenly, their natural ally became the greatest threat to their existence.

Faced with the imminent danger of their lives, the villagers began pressing the government to relocate them to a safer place. In 2011, after many attempts, the state government finally laid the foundations of a resettlement colony at Bagpatiya, 11 kilometres inland from their original villages. Every household was offered a plot of 1 decibel of land and Rs 1.5 lakh under a rural housing scheme to rebuild their houses. After quite some struggle with the administration, the villagers finally relocated to their new colony in 2018. Once here, relieved to have moved from the encroaching sea, but without any means of livelihood, the pangs of deracination began to be felt.