Vaishali Shroff’s Submerged Worlds explores the untold stories of India’s rivers

In 2023, during a trek done Uttarakhand, writer Vaishali Shroff stopped astatine the Tehri dam. The vast, glassy expanse of h2o shimmered nether the sun. But down its calm, she sensed absence, an full satellite drowned successful silence. As her operator pointed to the reservoir and said softly that his location laic determination beneath those waters, the infinitesimal stayed with her. That submerged representation became the effect for Submerged Worlds and Other Amazing Stories of India’s Mighty Rivers, published by Penguin Random House earlier this year.

The publication is simply a postulation of 21 stories that work arsenic some intimate reflections and expansive chronicles of India’s rivers. Each communicative unfolds into respective smaller narratives that uncover lives intertwined with these waterways. Shroff examines rivers arsenic surviving entities, repositories of history, ecology and culture, portion besides tracing their dilatory diminution nether the value of neglect and exploitation. “The connection submerged,” she explains, “suggests that determination are stories that person been deliberately kept from us, either ignored oregon buried nether different agendas.” According to her, her intent is not lone to pass but to reconstruct these stories to nationalist memory. In the people of the book, she moves done the Yamuna’s pollution, the encroached riverbeds of municipality India and the vanished riverfronts that erstwhile sustained communities. There are accounts of dams that altered landscapes and displaced families, of glaciers retreating into fragility and of cities that present flood due to the fact that their rivers tin nary longer breathe. To recognize the anatomy of rivers, Vaishali enrolled successful a h2o studies programme astatine Tarun Bharat Sangh. The course, she says, allowed her to spot beyond the romanticist representation of rivers and into the subject of their decline. “It helped maine recognize wherefore rivers die, however they tin beryllium revived and what our relation indispensable beryllium successful that process,” she says. This instauration of probe forms the bedrock of Submerged Worlds. For Vaishali, who is trained arsenic an technologist but has spent the past 15 years arsenic a writer, the publication represents a confluence of method and emotion. It is her archetypal enactment that she has some written and illustrated. The black-and-white sketches scattered crossed the pages were drawn during the penning process. “They are an hold of my storytelling,” she says. “Sometimes, what cannot beryllium said successful words tin beryllium drawn.” The enactment drawings connection intermission successful the text, moments for readers to sorb the extent of what has been mislaid and what inactive survives. Vaishali’s attack to the taxable is not mournful but investigative. She brings unneurotic the voices of farmers, volunteers, scientists, archaeologists and activists. Their experiences and expertise signifier the corporate representation that the publication seeks to preserve. “These are their stories,” she insists. “I americium lone the medium, taking them from the rivers to the readers.”

Her penning besides attempts to span what she calls the “knowledge spread and enactment gap” successful conversations astir clime and ecology. While biology consciousness has grown, she observes that overmuch of it remains confined to information and headlines, seldom translating into sustained engagement. By framing technological and societal realities done quality stories, she hopes to physique a much idiosyncratic transportation betwixt readers and the earthy world. While Submerged Worlds recounts harm and displacement, it besides carries a thread of optimism. Vaishali highlights the efforts of individuals and groups who person dedicated their lives to stream conservation. Organisations specified arsenic Jeevit Nadi and Pune River Revival and communities similar the Rabaris, Warlis, Shompen and Nicobarese, who proceed to unrecorded successful harmony with their rivers. “It was important to amusement that determination is hope,” she says. “That rivers tin retrieve if we perceive to them and to those who unrecorded by them.” Vaishali, who volition beryllium successful Visakhapatnam for the Vizag Junior Literature Festival connected November 8 and 9, volition behaviour sessions connected Submerged Worlds and the creation of weaving biology narratives for young audiences (13 to 16 years property group). For her, the book’s astir important intent lies successful sparking curiosity among children. “The stories successful this publication whitethorn not cleanable polluted rivers oregon revive dormant rivers connected their own. If thing astatine all, I anticipation that the stories marque the readers, young and old, autumn successful emotion with rivers and instrumentality them connected their ain journeys on their flowing waters,” she says. Over the years, Vaishali Shroff has built a distinctive dependable successful children’s literature. A Bal Sahitya Puraskar 2025 nominee for Taatung Tatung and Other Amazing Stories of India’s Diverse Languages, she has authored astir 50 children’s books and published implicit 350 stories successful 22 languages. Her biography Meera Mukherjee: Breaking Moulds was selected for The White Ravens 2023 and she received the AutHer Award 2023 for Batata, Pao and All Things Portuguese. She has besides written a movie script, Rajasaur, connected Indian dinosaurs, which has been screened and awarded internationally.

Vaishali Shroff volition beryllium holding aggregate sessions astatine the Vizag Junior Lit Fest to beryllium held connected November 8 and 9 astatine Hawa Mahal. Registrations for the sessions tin beryllium done astatine Tanishq (VIP Road), Pages Book Store and Book Magic Library.