At just 10 years of age, this girl from Karapakkam in Chennai is already a protector of the sea — spending about two-three days a week diving into the sea to clear plastic waste and protect endangered species such as dugong (sea cow). That is right — she is Thaaragai Aarathana, one of the youngest licensed PADI junior open water divers in the world and her love for the ocean and marine life runs in her family. Her father, Aravind Tharunsri, a full-time scuba diving instructor is in the business long before she was born.
To date, Thaaragai has removed around 3000 kilograms of plastic from under the sea, which is sold to scrap shops, and has earned approximately 22,000 rupees, which she plans to donate to Tamil Nadu’s Department of Environment. As a homeschooled student (as well as one attending a school nearby to experience the school environment), her commitment to the sea extends beyond cleanup efforts. She also raises awareness by completing challenging swims every year, the last one is crossing the Palk Strait from Talaimannar in Sri Lanka to Dhanushkodi in India in 11 hours and 30 minutes.
A diver himself, Thaaragai Aarathana’s father first took her to the ocean when she was three days old. She was floating by herself at nine months, and swimming at the age of two. At five, she had her first shot at breathing underwater, and, by eight, she was diving to the depth of two metres off the shores of Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu
My father is my inspiration,” she says enthusiastically. “I love diving and I like colourful fishes. The waters off Manamelkudi have lovely coral and fish, but we also find so much plastic – bags, slippers, water bottles, caps, straws… Once we released two turtles stuck in ghost (abandoned) nets, but their flippers were cut and damaged from being entangled in the net for so many days.”
Thaaragai believes that nature will take good care of us, but we, too, have to take care of nature.
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