Guest Article by Nirmala Gowda

This is time of immense grief and loss for me. Unable to face the harsh reality of my mother gasping for each breath in the ICU, I was drowning myself in work. Co-incidentally or so I think, I was working on a report analysing asphyxiation of Vrishabhavathi, Arkavathi and Cauvery rivers and suffocation of aquatic lifeforms the rivers supported. As the dissolved oxygen graph took shape, I realized : The  million times I had held the dissolved oxygen meter under water to measure oxygen saturation levels  across rivers was no different from the million times we plugged the oximeter to my mother’s forefinger to check for oxygen saturation levels.  The realization that the very element my mother was gasping for, is the very element the rivers have long been gasping for – Oxygen and this pushed me deeper into a state of despair.