Meet a Deep Time Detective

The ‘Rajasauras’ in Ahmedabad. The ‘Barapsaurus’ in Telangana.

The ‘Titanosaurus’ near Jabalpur.

Dinosaurs, giant lizards, jellyfish and hominids, the journey of the Indian subcontinent, which began 4 billion years ago, has been steered by nature. The map it has followed has accumulated under our feet.?

Each rock we walk on, therefore, tells a story. Pranay Lal, biochemist turned geological chronicler and author, is determined to look under them all.

Meet the India-ana Jones of ‘Deep Natural History’

The present is rough, fragile, uncertain, yet history still seems to be its most contested feature. Why? Because it’s the surest thing. Or, is it? From narratives around the Aryan invasion to the ‘moral turpitude’ of the Mughal rule, religion, politics and identity have come to dictate the focal length of this gaze. But beyond this forest of incendiary motivations, there is this underscrutinised piece of land that holds clues to who we are, how we got here, and the role nature and climate have played in shaping our present. It’s this ‘deep natural history’ that Pranay Lal wants to cleave from the dusty, disregarded pages of our long colourful past.?

Lal has spent his years in policy, public health and environment. He has been a caricaturist for publications, an animator in advertising and a formidable environmental campaigner on issues like climate change and planetary health. His first book, Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent produced a first-of-its-kind account of early life in the subcontinent, its geographic lineage, and the fascinating creatures, pivotal events and mysterious fevers that preceded its first humans. A front row seat into a spectacular “orchestra of life”, with climate as the instrument responsible for shaping its texture, tempo and explosive climax. The same climate that now endangers our very existence.?

Chronicle of a subcontinent untold

If life is a canvas then climate and environment are the brush you paint it with. This is evidenced by the sheer diversity of geological configurations that have preceded the arrival of modern humans. Imagine for example, the Tethys Sea that existed under the sands of Jodhpur, or the fact that stones found in Chitradurga, Karnataka point to a once vast glacial cover. Or that the metallic, charred rocks of Dhanbad offer clues to the subcontinent’s last ice age; and how despite its harshness, living beings survived to see another era of bounty. All proof of climate’s pre-eminence as the master technology of creation. It’s not written in the stars, but in the rocks we walk on.

Lal argues that without uncovering and studying this natural history, any argument about its socio-political significance is incomplete. These “eloquent rocks”, he believes, can tell us about the evolutionary steps and missteps that have brought us to where we are today. Ignoring this vast, endlessly intriguing heritage is tantamount to socio-economic suicide.?

The future as told by fossils

The Indian subcontinent’s location, its terrain and varied ecology make it vulnerable to nature’s mood. A prolonged summer, a dry monsoon, a harsh winter can upset the complicated inner wiring of its life-affirming machinery. Thus far, we’ve somehow held on for dear life.?

But history shows civilizations can disappear, kingdoms collapse and entire species vanish with a flick of the planet’s hand. And yet, Lal argues “Climate’s role has received little attention in historical narratives”. A problem that could either be aggravated by AI-powered, algorithmic reading of the past or fixed by sharpening our tools of inquiry. Life didn’t begin yesterday. It’s unlikely that the solutions to today’s climate crisis do either.

At SYNAPSE 2025, Pranay Lal will exhibit the complex history of the Indian subcontinent, reframe its pivotal events, the characters to whom we owe its density, drama and diversity, unravel the socratic role nature has played in defining life, its evolution, impermanence and champion the criticality of digging “what lies beneath our feet”.?

Written by: Manik Sharma