This work needs to be seen in the framework that goes much beyond cholera, the title notwithstanding. Seven inter-connected sections reignite much needed debate and bring something new to the public health discourse in four cardinal domains: unfinished agenda of water, sanitation, and associated inequities; specter of unthoughtful urbanization; a transition of waterborne infections from epidemic to endemic/focal outbreaks scenario; and application of social determinants approach in an acute communicable disease. There is an unique analysis of the spatial distribution of cases within Delhi, making a compelling argument of ‘area effects’ as an epidemiological approach; and a deconstruction of the historical 1988 episode in Delhi, which would be variedly classified as ‘epidemic’, ‘outbreak’ or ‘clustered events’ (a perpetually unsettled debate). The flipside is that the title and the key words punctuating the narrative limit a big picture to a cholera centric construct.