Saumik Sharma ’25 presented on Nepal’s sustainability efforts with water- and the modern water sourcing that occurs in the Kathmandu Valley.
Andover’s first ever Sustainability Scholar, Saumik Sharma ’25, presented his research titled “Cities, Serpents, and the Descent of Gestating Cloud-Rivers” this past Monday, April 29, tracing Nepal’s water wisdom and delving into how Kathmandu’s Valley has sourced water to its urban settlements for over a thousand years.
Having worked on this project for months, Sharma connects his Nepali roots to modern sustainability issues, extending into spiritual and religious points of view. Sharma described his process in deciding the topic of his presentation and how he was inspired to explore the long-lasting history of water systems in the Kathmandu Valley.
“I’m very interested in things like history, culture, and anthropology, especially in relation to South Asia, so I changed my research project to talk about what’s called the ‘water heritage’ of the Kathmandu Valley. We had those ancient water systems [that] existed for so long solely because they’re so harmonious with the environment, and they were built by people who had a very intricate knowledge of the land that they lived on. That’s why there are some [systems] that have been flowing for the past thirteen hundred or more years,” said Sharma.
Ellie Sun ’25, a participant at the event and Sharma’s friend, discussed why she decided to attend the talk. She talked about the hard work and effort that she had seen Sharma put into this process and how he has always been an expert in this field.
“I went to [Saumik’s] presentation today because I’ve seen how hard Saumik has been working. He’s super passionate about this subject, and I’ve heard him talk about [this project] for this whole year, since at least winter term, and I don’t really know much about sustainability systems either, especially not in Nepal. Saumik is the person to ask for any kind of wisdom that has to do with sustainability, because he always has his own opinions and thoughts to say about the subject. I thought today would be the perfect way to hear everything come together,” said Sun.
Sharma also touched on the idea of collectivism and how the more individualized water system caused that dynamic to shift. He described the water culture that existed before these modernizations, and how having access to convenient taps at home disrupted a sense of community.
“When [there is] communal water, it exemplifies this idea of collectivism and communal living, like people gathering in one place and people drinking from the same spout, and then after the individual running water [system] reached every single home and [people] have taps in [their] houses, people are cut out of that collectivism and that communal spirit. Everything is individualized, and I think this was part of a grander shift of individualism and to collectivism [in general]. This is still continuing in Asian cultures, and [this dynamic] is exemplified by this system as well,” said Sharma.
Sakina Cotton ’24, another participant of the event, noted that her favorite part was when Sharma brought his topic to a broader perspective, allowing the audience to contemplate how they can contribute to the environment, how they can make a change, and how they can notice something in nature and bring it to a greater population.
“I liked the way that [Saumik] centered, at the end of his presentation, how we can use some of these community works to think about a sustainable future in any community, and that’s going to really be the mindset that carries us to new, innovative, and effective climate adaptation and different strategies to save our world. I appreciated him doing that,” said Cotton.
Additionally, as an active member of the Phillips Academy Sustainability Coalition (PASC), Lisa de Boer ’26 enjoyed Sharma’s insights on the water system in Nepal, concluding that nature contributes the most to sustaining the water systems, not humans. She also deduced that the survival and lives of humans are largely dependent on the natural world.
“The coolest part was when [Saumik] was talking about the water system and how they were kept clean throughout millennia, and a big part of how that was done was not only human maintenance, but the natural food chain, how there were fish living in the water that cleared the algae, and frogs eating the fish, and snakes eating the frogs, and the mongoose eating the snakes. So, it showed that the environment took care of the people, and people can’t survive in the long run without the environment,” said de Boer.
To conclude, Sharma provided some insightful advice for students who are interested in starting this difficult process of becoming a Sustainability Scholar, suggesting that passion will lead to success.
“I would [suggest] to definitely choose a research topic that you are truly passionate about and for which you know that you can spend months with this idea. In my case, I had to spend over a year with my research and working on my presentation. You need to be passionate, and you need to know that [the topic] is something that you can engage with in an extended period of time without feeling like you have saturated it… You need to find something that has that balance,” said Sharma.
