Frequent droughts affect agriculture and livelihoods of millions of farm households in Semiarid India. Here we attempt to answer the question why some farm households are able to better cope with drought and bounce back quickly as compared to many others. The analysis considered 256 households-data from 2006 to 2014 from three semi-arid regions in India. Households were categorized using crop income and composite crop productivity index of pre-drought and post-drought years. The principal component analysis was applied to construct a composite vulnerability and resilience index. Study analyzes determinants of drought-impacts and risk choices through rigorous statistical process. It is revealed that cultivated area was more impacted then crop yields; adopting cash crops was an important driver of household’s resilience. Crop income drives not only high drought impacts but also the ability of households to bounce back. Higher operated-area, off-farm and livestock income in pre-drought years and cash crop area and cropping intensity post-drought enabled households to stay highly resilient. We conclude that drought impacts and resilience ability of different farm households in a region is not uniform. There is need to consider this heterogeneity to devise robust policy to derive effective resilience enhancing strategies targeting vulnerable households.