Meera Subramanian
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On ‘Writing the Book You Can’t Not Write’

September 21, 2017 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Between the Lines: Subramanian on ‘Writing the Book You Can’t Not Write’

For the latest installment of SEJournal’s author Q & A, “Between the Lines,” Meera Subramanian talks to book editor Tom Henry about the research and writing process behind her debut, “A River Runs Again: India’s Natural World in Crisis,” a 2016 Orion Book Award finalist that travels from the barren cliffs of Rajasthan to the farmlands of Karnataka.

SEJournal: What inspired you to write “A River Runs Again?”

Meera Subramanian: I have visited India all my life to see my father’s family and couldn’t help but observe how things were done there compared to my home in the United States. I’d be older with each trip, viewing with a new perspective, but India was changing, too, and when the country opened up its economy in the 1990s, that change ramped up to a frantic pace.

But who was getting left behind as the IT boom swept South Asia? Where was this country that is now poised to become the most populous nation on Earth heading in terms of development? What were they doing right and what were they doing wrong in a place where a growing population was colliding with limited natural resources, where everyone wants to satisfy their basic needs — and then some?

But this wasn’t just describing India; it was the state of the entire world. I decided to start with India, a place I could view with the fresh eyes of an outsider but also with a touch of insider knowledge.

Read the entire interview here.

Filed Under: journalism Tagged With: Elemental India, Fulbright, india, journalism, Knight Science Journalism, peregrine falcon, Society of Environmental Journalists

Can Delhi save itself…

June 20, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

…from its toxic air?

by Meera Subramanian

by Meera Subramanian

In A River Runs Again, I explored the devastating effects of cook fires on human and climatic health, but they are just one part of what is causing New Delhi to claim the worst air quality of any major city in the world. Since January, I’ve been researching what it is that makes Delhi’s air so toxic and what steps the city is undertaking to try to improve it. Here’s the start of the piece just published in Nature:

On winter nights, New Delhi burns with innumerable fires. Flames flicker along pavements and street corners, where the destitute huddle to stay warm and cook their suppers, while night watchmen stand guard next to their own small blazes outside private homes. The rising plumes of smoke mingle with exhaust and dust stirred up by overloaded trucks that rumble down roads blanketed in fog. The mixture melds into a nearly opaque substance that leaves a metallic taste on the tongue. Overhead, there is not a single star to be seen.

Read the rest of “Can Delhi save itself from its toxic air?” here.

As for action, encouraging news came a couple weeks ago, with the announcement of a plan to spend almost $3 billion to reduce traffic congestion in New Delhi, although it still needs to be approved and some of the measures are ones that have failed in the past, such as Bus Rapid Transit systems. But a move for more buses, and more pedestrian crossways, and to actually make parking on a footpath an offense, is an excellent start. Increased attention to the issue is a hopeful indicator of more action to come.

If you want to know more, nonprofits such as the Centre for Science and the Environment and Care For Air both are work to inform the public about the city’s air quality, UrbanEmissions brings together concise graphics and scientific information to help understand a complicated issue, and the Air Quality in Delhi Facebook group connects concerned citizens.

I also wrote a couple of pieces specifically about the odd-even traffic reduction plan that was underway when I was in Delhi in January. “New Delhi car ban yields trove of pollution data” was in Nature and the piece with the (mildly overblown!) title “Amazing Things Happened When New Delhi Halved the Number of Cars on the Road” ran in Vice News.

Measuring air quality is incredibly tricky business. The 122 micrograms per cubic metre [Read more…]

Filed Under: journalism Tagged With: A River Runs Again, air, air pollution, air quality, Elemental India, india, New Delhi

Will Modi Colonize his Country or Enact EcoSwaraj?

March 20, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

NEW DELHI/INDIA, 16NOV08 -Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, India, speaks during the welcome lunch at the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit 2008 in New Delhi, 16-18 November 2008. Copyright World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org)/Photo by Norbert Schiller

Photo by Norbert Schiller via Wikimedia Commons

I am a half-daughter of India. I have watched the South Asian nation develop since I first visited Madras as a young girl, my Indian father bringing his fair-skinned American wife and my brother and me from America on multiple trips to visit dozens of relatives along the shores of the Bay of Bengal.

In the forty years since that first visit, the country has undergone a whole-scale transformation. Never have there been so many humans with so much elemental need for healthy food, clean water, and dependable energy systems. How will India bring these basics to her citizenry?

In recent years, I have visited as an environmental journalist and Fulbright scholar to seek out the answer to this question, investigating the state of India’s natural world and exploring how the elements – earth, water, fire, air and ether – are faring. I found a subcontinent in crisis, but I also found individuals and organisations reinventing their landscapes and lives.

Whether they will receive support from the government remains to be seen.

Read the rest at TheDailyO.

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india, journalism Tagged With: A River Runs Again, Elemental India, india, journalism, opinion

Elemental India tour continuing south…

February 9, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

 

2016.01.31-27

More events coming up for Elemental India. Specific details here. Hope to see you and do share the word with others you know in the following cities:

Pune:
• 11 Feb: Fergusson College
Chennai:
• 15 Feb: MIDS
• 16 Feb: IIT-M Research Park
Bengaluru:
• 19 Feb: Azim Premji University
• 19 Feb: IISc Centre for Ecological Sciences
Hyderabad:
• 26 Feb: University of Hyderabad

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india Tagged With: A River Runs Again, book tour, Elemental India, events, india, pollution environment

Mumbai events

February 1, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

2016.01.31-271
I’m in Mumbai this week speaking about Elemental India, as the air is thick with the residue of the Deonar dump fire, as we think about solutions.  Here are a few events:
 
  • Green Drinks at Bombay Connect Thurs. Feb. 4 at 7:30 pm
  • Mumbai Press Club Fri. Feb. 5 at 4:00 pm (journalists only)
  • Kala Ghoda Arts Festival Eco-Arts panel Sat. Feb. 6 at 6:45 pm, where I’m excited to explore the power of the arts in enacting ecological change. With Ravi Agarwal, Sonia Mehra Chawla and Arati Kumar-Rao.
See here for specific details, as well as information on other book events happening around India. 

Filed Under: elemental india, readings Tagged With: book tour, Elemental India, events, Mumbai, readings

UChicago Center/EPIC presentation: New Delhi

January 21, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Epic
I’ll be giving a full multimedia presentation about Elemental India at The Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago- India (EPIC India), an interdisciplinary research group at U.Chicago on energy and environmental policy and economics. Join us!
Thursday, January 28, 2016
6:00 PM
UChicago Center
DLF Capitol Point
Baba Kharak Singh Marg
New Delhi
RSVP here.

Related show

  • Author: Meera Subramanian
  • Tour: A River Runs Again / Elemental India Book Tour
  • Date: January 28, 2016
  • Time: 6:00pm
  • Venue: UChicago Center in Delhi
  • City: New Delhi
  • Address: DLF Capitol Point, Baba Kharak Singh Marg, Connaught Place
  • Country: India
  • Notes: Elemental India: The Natural World at a Time of Crisis and Opportunity. Multimedia presentation

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india, readings Tagged With: A River Runs Again, book tour, Elemental India, energy, events, india, readings

We Speak Up: Delhi event

January 20, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Feminism Beyond Boundaries 25Jan (1)“We Speak Up: Can a Generation of Indian Girls Find their Voice?” 

Another Delhi event coming up on Monday, when I’ll be speaking at Apne Aap‘s Feminism Beyond Boundaries series. I’ll be focusing on the fifth element in my book, in which I traveled to Bihar to explore population growth along with reproductive and sexual health training for teens. One girl transformed her life when she slipped a note into her father’s pocket….

Join me Monday, January 25, 2016 at the Oxford Bookstore Connaught Place (81, N Block, Connaught Place), 4:00 pm, to hear more.

Check out the Facebook event page here.

Related show

  • Author: Meera Subramanian
  • Tour: A River Runs Again / Elemental India Book Tour
  • Date: January 25, 2016
  • Time: 4:00pm
  • Venue: Oxford Bookstore
  • City: New Delhi
  • Address: N-81, Connaught Circus
  • Country: India
  • Notes: “We Speak Up: Can a Generation of Indian Girls Find their Voice?”

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india, readings Tagged With: book tour, Elemental India, energy, events, feminism, india, readings

The Dogs: an excerpt

January 20, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

IMG_7716

Bikaner carcass dump, Rajasthan. Photo by Meera Subramanian.

An excerpt from Elemental India / A River Runs Again, featured in The Caravan.

The vultures are gone, but the livestock carcasses they once consumed by the millions remain. Many are collected and deposited at carcass dumps like the one called Jorbeer on the outskirts of Bikaner, where dogs run wild amid an endless supply of food.

As I travelled around India, I kept hearing about aggressive dogs. Soon after I arrived in Bikaner, someone told me about two local girls, eight or nine years old, who were attacked by dogs at night, while they were sleeping. They were such easy prey. “They were hurt so badly, but not killed,” the man told me.

“The police came and took the dogs away, but I was so astonished…how can there be dogs like this?”

Read the rest at The Caravan. 

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india Tagged With: A River Runs Again, book tour, Elemental India, india, vulture

India Book Launch: New Delhi!

January 18, 2016 By meerasub Leave a Comment

ElementalIndiaLaunchINVITE

Join me, Delhiites! I’ve landed in India for the release of Elemental India: The Natural World in a Time of Crisis and Opportunity, and hope you’ll join me at one of the upcoming events. This is the official book launch, Tuesday, January 19th (tomorrow!) at The American Center at 6:00 pm. I’ll be in conversation with the wonderful Aseem Shrivastava, co-author of Churning the Earth.We’ll be touching upon faith in a seed, vanishing vultures, rivers reborn, choking air, population pressures, and the eternal question of hope. And there’ll be refreshments. Co-hosted by The American Center, HarperCollins India, USIEF (Fulbright) and Caravan magazine. Do come! Details here.

Update: Here’s a podcast of our conversation:

More events in the works for Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai over the next month. Find all details for confirmed events here.

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india, Fulbright Tagged With: book tour, Elemental India, events, Fulbright, india, readings

Now, ACT.

December 10, 2015 By meerasub Leave a Comment

Many people have asked me, after presentations or via email, What can I do? Stories should be sparks and the listeners/readers, tinder. The last thing I want is for you to set A River Runs Again/Elemental India down and walk away wiping your hands clean. So, if you’re so inspired….

Here are some of the organizations I focused on in the book as well as others whose efforts I’ve come across in my research. No organization is perfect. I write and explore the efforts, successful and struggling both. So don’t consider this list an endorsement, necessarily, but an excellent starting point for you to make your own explorations and decide to become a member, send a donation, get involved, or simply learn more. [Read more…]

Filed Under: A River Runs Again, elemental india Tagged With: A River Runs Again, conservation, Elemental India, india

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