I watched numerous videos of the city of Bangalore going under water, over the past few weeks. There were horrified comments accompanying every clip that surfaced and went viral. Some residents complained about how the state government had let them all down, while others pointed out—on LinkedIn, obviously—that this would send the rest of the world the wrong kind of message about how India’s self-proclaimed Silicon Valley was anything but a developed city. Still others did what millions of us have begun to do more often over the past eight years or so: asking those complaining to get out of the city and move elsewhere.

The videos made me wonder why we get as upset as we do when our cities and towns flood and lead to significant losses. It happens every year, and we know it will for the rest of our lifetimes because it has been happening since we were all children; so why not make the most of it and celebrate these floods as an inescapable part of the Indian experience? If we can accept air, water, and noise pollution as part of our heritage during every festival, why not incorporate all of these avoidable natural disasters into our tourism campaigns?