From the Banks of Dhubri to the halls of Brussels

A Journey Rooted in Assam’s Climate Reality

The first time I saw my school underwater, I didn’t know what climate change was. I just knew we’d be off for a few days — again. The floodwaters had arrived like clockwork, silencing the morning bell and swallowing the playground where we used to race barefoot.

I was growing up in Dhubri, India, a quiet river town on the western edge of Assam. There, the Brahmaputra wasn’t just a river. It was a mood, a memory, a looming presence. Every year, it crept into our homes — sometimes knee-deep, sometimes to the windows — dissolving boundaries between land and water, certainty and chaos.

We didn’t call it a climate crisis. We called it life.

It wasn’t until I moved to Guwahati that I began to notice the cracks — not just in the ground beneath our feet but in the systems that were supposed to protect us. In Dhubri, floods came quietly. In Guwahati, they came with broken roads, headlines, and outrage that lasted a news cycle. Here, the water didn’t just damage homes — it exposed how deeply unprepared our cities were.

And yet, nobody outside seemed to care.

Later, when I moved to Delhi for my undergraduate studies, the disaster changed its face. The rivers weren’t flooding — the air was. Thick with dust, diesel, and indifference. I remember standing at a bus stop, choking through a grey November morning, and realising: this isn’t weather anymore. This is warning.

In Delhi, I saw garbage mountains taller than buildings. Children playing next to burning waste heaps. Stray animals feeding on plastic. I couldn’t look away. And once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it — not in Delhi, not in Dhubri, not in Guwahati. I began asking myself, every day: What kind of world are we building, if breathing in it is a privilege?

So I changed — one habit at a time. I turned vegan. I stopped using plastic. I started volunteering, especially when I went home. In Assam, I worked on menstrual health campaigns, going door-to-door with information about menstrual cups, composting, and waste-free hygiene. I organised plastic-free drives in schools and taught people how to make bio-manure from kitchen waste. These weren’t big actions. But they mattered — because they were ours.

And then, I left again — this time to Europe. I went to Brussels to study international relations and foreign policy , carrying with me the heat of Delhi, the mud of Assam, and the weight of stories I’d collected. For the first time, I lived in a city where the bins were colour-coded, where sustainability was law, not luxury. Waste was segregated. Public transport ran clean. Climate wasn’t just a subject — it was policy, it was infrastructure, it was expected.

But I also realised something else.

While Europe debated carbon credits in conference rooms, my people were bailing out floodwater with tin buckets. While academics cited rising sea levels, farmers in Assam were rewriting their planting calendars because the rain had forgotten how to come on time.

That contrast shook me.

I dove deeper into research on circular economies and environmental diplomacy. I became part of the Oxford School of Climate Change. I trained as an En-ROADS Climate Ambassador. I learned how to model global emissions, trace policy impacts, and write proposals. But I never stopped thinking about that woman in rural Assam who once asked me, “Didi, will this compost save our home when the river comes again?”

That question still drives me.

Yoga — something I turned to during those smog-filled days in Delhi — became my grounding. It reminded me that sustainability isn’t something we shout about in slogans. It’s something we live — in breath, in balance, in discipline. Today, I teach yoga not just as movement, but as a mindset — one that aligns our bodies with the Earth.

My journey hasn’t been linear. It’s been circular — like the economy I advocate for. Like the seasons I grew up with. Like the floods that keep returning.

And yet, Assam gives me hope. Hope in the form of farmers who still plant saplings after losing last year’s crop. Of women who meet after every flood to build again, from scratch. Of children who collect plastic in school yards because they believe the land deserves better.

I do what I do — speak, write, teach, campaign — not because I think I have all the answers. I do it because I’ve seen what happens when people are left without questions, without tools, without a voice.

And I’ve seen how powerful they become when they are given even one.

When the floods came for us, we learned to swim. But now it’s time to build rafts — strong, circular, shared. Because resilience shouldn’t be a punishment. It should be a plan.

From the Banks of Dhubri to the halls of Brussels

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Shristi More is a climate communicator, grassroots campaigner, and yoga teacher from Assam. She completed her masters in International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis from University of Kent, BSIS in Brussels, trained with the Oxford School of Climate Change, and works at the intersection of climate justice, circular economy, and healing practices.

Featured images by A large amount of trash is on the shore of a river photo – Free Pollution Image on Unsplash.