A story about water is also a story about family

What you must understand

is that when I tell you a story about my body,

I cannot separate it from a story about water.

And a story about water is also a story about family.

And a story about family is rooted in the earth.

And when I tell you about the earth,

I must tell you about elephants and chimpanzees,

cows and chickens,

coral and trees,

monkeys and bees.

What harms one body harms all bodies.

Like tributaries to the same river, our stories are entwined.

Sangamithra Iyer won the CLMP Firecracker Award in Creative Nonfiction for her first book, Governing Bodies: a memoir, a confluence, a watershed. She is a licensed professional engineer, environmental planner, and writer whose career has been shaped by water. She also received a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant and a Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellowship at the New York Public Library, where she researched water histories atop a former drinking water reservoir.

[cr1] Sangam by Sangamithra Iyer 
Animation by Shambhavi Shukla

[cr2] This is an excerpt from Governing Bodies: A Memoir, A Confluence, A Watershed is published by Milkweed Editions 2025 (North America)/ Speaking Tiger 2026 (South Asia)
Commissioned by Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff
Additional production by Imriel Morgan and David Roberts