A saying goes that the river is everywhere at the same time. It underscores the essence of how water flows beyond fixed notions of space and time. A book on rivers of India also has to match the vitality and ubiquity with which these braids of life nurture our worlds, while recounting the horrors we humans are unleashing on them.

Just like a river, ‘Submerged Worlds’ also takes its time to unfold. It meanders through origin stories, gods and goddesses, scoops a few crystals along, raises the essential noise on pollution, mining and encroachments, and then unravels the vast expanse that touches everything from colonialism to geopolitics, legal rights, activism, bandits and gender. It’s a wonder that the author, Vaishali Shroff, managed to talk about most big rivers of India in a comprehensive manner within 200 pages of text. That makes this book a good reference for anyone wanting to understand the riverine ecosystem of this vast country.

The scientific research, personal anecdotes, policy framework and data points all come together to give a complete analysis of the dismal state of our rivers.

Whether it’s the submerged towns and villages and the residents who got displaced because of big dams, or women walking miles to fetch water, receding glaciers or rivers choked with plastic and sewage, all the pertinent issues are narrated through lived experiences of people and backed by research studies. Shroff also draws out the imminent challenges like those from developmental projects in the Great Nicobar Island, interlinking of rivers and trans-boundary dams.

The chapter on legal rights brings in the debate on how rivers can be seen as living entities and the limitations to that.

While a major portion of the book recounts the problems, the latter part presents the people who are coming up with solutions. Be it the famous activists of Narmada Bachao Andolan or the unsung crusaders in Meghalaya, a newspaper vendor cleaning the Yamuna or an activist shoring up data on sand mining, ‘Submerged Worlds’ brings in some hope.

The accounts of rivers that yield gold, battles between different colonial powers for control over the Hooghly, co-existence of humans and wildlife are fascinating while the investigation into many Saraswatis ends with the right question: should we invest so much to revive rivers of the past at the cost of environment, or look after the currently polluted rivers on which millions of lives depend?

The accompanying illustrations and the ancient stories lend it a non-academic look which can appeal to young Indians interested in exploring the riparian world. The book is teeming with mythological stories from the mainstream Hindu pantheon, lending the essence of magical realism to the environmental issues. But one wonders how many of these tales from the scriptures resonate with the locals. While the origin stories of Ganga, Yamuna or Narmada have entered popular culture through nationwide pilgrimages and mythological television serials, other rivers may still have more raw and regional stories around them.

Instead of just relying on the Sanskritised versions, focusing on diverse local religious beliefs, practices and taboos could have unearthed interesting folklores.

But since this book has so much more to talk about, it can’t be blamed for not going deeper into this aspect, which can be the subject of another book targeted at younger readers.