The Subverse

We kick off season five of The Subverse, focused on the element of ‘air’, with host Susan Mathews in conversation with Dr. Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune, India. Roxy has made breakthrough contributions to the research, monitoring, and modelling of climate and extreme weather events over the Indo-Pacific region. His work has advanced the scientific understanding of monsoon floods and droughts, terrestrial and marine heatwaves, and cyclones, facilitating the food, water, and economic security of the region. His recent research focuses on developing climate-smart health warning systems that integrate climate and health data with AI/ML to enable early action and long-term planning. Roxy actively collaborates with citizen science networks, local governments, and media to bring science to society.  Roxy starts by explaining that the average atmospheric temperature rise of 1.2 to 1.5 degrees doesn’t tell the whole story. 93% of the heat produced by anthropogenic climate change is absorbed and contained by the oceans; the heat we feel is only 7% of it. Even this is also not equally distributed over time or space. The tropics, and regions like India which are surrounded by warming oceans, experience more heat. The changes in gradients in the temperature affects the paths of atmospheric jet streams and ocean currents that distribute heat, which changes the rhythm of the seasons, intensifying monsoons and increasing heat waves. The Indian Ocean, bordered by 40 countries that are home to a third of the global population, is warming faster than other oceans and moving to a near permanent marine heat wave state. Corals, on which 25% of the marine biodiversity depends, are the first to die in these heatwaves, losing their protective symbiotic algae. And this affects the numbers and species of phytoplankton, which produce half the oxygen we breath, and there are cascading impacts through the food chain.  He emphasises, however, that climate change is not the only factor in these changes. Industrial fishing has resulted in more depletion of fish than temperature changes. Flooding in India is caused not just by climate change but also rapid and unplanned urbanization and other local changes, but politicians will only blame the former. In the USA, they don’t focus on climate change because they have a historical responsibility. The world is polarized and the narratives around climate change are selective based on alliances, but we need to have a comprehensive view.  There is hope, Roxy says. If we can use the data that we have to understand the heat waves over the land and ocean, we can adapt and safeguard the ecosystems and our own lives. If we act now, we can have different socioeconomic pathways for the future. Data is key to making these changes. Roxy’s pet project is to make every school in India a weather station, starting with tools as simple as a plastic bottle to measure rainfall, because if children grow up with an awareness of how the climate is changing, they can adapt.  While a lot of the focus is on climate mitigation, this is outside the scope of the individual, or even a single country, and the necessary global cooperation doesn’t exist. Roxy reminds us, however, that adaptation is something that can and needs to be done locally. We can track local data, project this data into the future, and prepare our homes, farmlands, and our daily life for a climate changed world. Roxy is that unusual blend of rigorous scientist and amazing science communicator, who speaks with empathy, heart and an outlook prioritizing action and deeds. This conversation was also proof of something I have found in this elemental journey in the past few years. Quoting John Muir, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”   This season of The Subverse has been produced by Tushar Das. A special thank you to Julian Wey for access to his Qumquat studio and Daniel Schwenger for his assistance.  More about the guest:  Roxy Koll did his Ph.D. in Ocean and Atmospheric Dynamics from Hokkaido University, Japan. He is a Lead Author of the IPCC Reports and the former Chair of the Indian Ocean Region Panel. He received the Rashtriya Vigyan Puraskar (National Science Award), the highest recognition in the field of science, technology and innovation in India, from the President of India in 2024. He was conferred a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and was awarded the AGU Devendra Lal Medal for outstanding research in Earth and Space Sciences in 2022. He is among the top 2% scientists ranked by Stanford University. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences awarded him the Kavli Fellowship in 2015 and the NRC Senior Research Fellowship in 2018. The Indian Meteorological Society felicitated him with the Young Scientist Award in 2016 for his research on the changes in the Monsoon. You can follow Roxy on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Read more about his work here.

In episode three of season four, host Anjali Alappat sits down with writer, academic and documentary producer, Sami Ahmad Khan.  He is the author of Red Jihad: Battle for South Asia (2012), Aliens in Delhi (2017), and the monograph Star Warriors of the Modern Raj: Materiality, Mythology and Technology of Indian Science Fiction (2021).   Sami was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar and his fiction has been the subject of formal academic research and a part of university syllabi in India and the US. His overview of Indian SF has been translated into Czech and his short story has been translated into Marathi. His creative and critical writings have appeared in leading academic journals (Science Fiction Studies, The Journal of Popular Culture, Foundation), university presses (MIT Press, University of Wales Press), and trade imprints (Gollancz, Hachette, Bloomsbury, Routledge, Rupa, Juggernaut, Niyogi). Sami is also the recipient of a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Fellowship (University of Oslo, Norway), a Fulbright FLTA grant (University of Iowa, USA), and a UGC-MANF Senior Research Fellowship (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India). He currently discusses life and Science Fiction at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, where he teaches MA and PhD-level courses on SF, as well as supervises PhD research on Indian SF. In this episode, we discuss our love for pulpy science fiction, T-rexes, Black holes, and the Bermuda triangle, thought experiments, being a fan, genre conventions, and the future of Indian science fiction. You can follow Sami on X @SamiAhmadKhan Read Sami’s Work: Books 1. Aliens in Delhi. Niyogi Books (2017) 2. Red Jihad: Battle for South Asia. Rupa & Co. (2012) 3. Star Warriors of the Modern Raj: Materiality, Mythology and Technology of Indian Science Fiction. University of Wales Press (2021) Edited Collection: 1. The Speculative Route: Futures from South and Southwest Asia and North Africa. Routledge (2025, co-edited with Merve Tabur) Short fiction:   1. “Ancient Zombies: Six Indian Narratives of the Undead”. Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature. Jan-Feb. 2024. 2. “Biryani Bagh”, The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction II. Hachette (2021) 3. “15004”, The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction. Gollancz (2019) 4. “PT Period”, Muse India (2016) Podcast: 1. The NeoMONSTERS Podcast Academic articles: 1. “Zombies and India: The neoMONSTERS Epidemiology”. The Journal of Popular Culture, 56(2). 341-355. (2023) 2. “Dom(e)inating India’s Tomorrow(s)? Global Climate Change in Select Anglophonic Narratives”. Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research. 6(2). 25-37 (2019) 3. “The Others in India’s Other Futures,” Science Fiction Studies. 43(3), Indian SF. 479-495 (2016)  4. “Gods of War Toke While Riding a Vimana: Hindu Gods in Three Indian Science Fiction Novels.” Journal of Science Fiction. 1(1) 17-31 (2016) 5. “Control+Alt+Delete Humanity” Uneven Futures: Strategies for Community Survival from Speculative Fiction. Ed. By Yoshinaga, Guynes and Canavan. MIT Press (2022)

In this final instalment of Cataplisms, we join conservation anthropologist Sahil Nijhawan and his collaborator Iho Mitapo in the Dibang Valley on a journey that is both spiritual and scientific. Iho and Sahil are founding members of the Dibang Team, a biocultural conservation initiative led by the Idu Mishmi, the indigenous inhabitants of the Dibang valley, that takes a multi-pronged and multi-disciplinary approach. It has established an ancestral storytelling program (Taju Taye), piloted a program that adapts the traditional system of shamanic learning to present-day socio-economic realities (Igu Aahito) and pioneered community-led conservation and research.  In this audio story, Iho details the creation story of his Idu Mishmi community, one which deems man and tiger to be brothers. Meanwhile, Sahil fills us in on their camera-trapping expedition that resulted in a sensational deep-forest revelation. His team discovered a unique adaptation that might be critical to the survival of the elusive Asian golden cat, a beautiful mid-sized feline listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Click here to see their discovery vibrantly illustrated in a comic by artist Sudarshan Shaw.  Sahil and Iho’s research takes place in the sprawling Dibang valley in Arunachal Pradesh, India. The valley lies in the embrace of the Eastern Himalayas Global Biodiversity Hotspot, where new species, like the orchid Hemipilia basifoliata are continuously being discovered. The culture of the Idu Mishmi is credited for preserving the diversity of this land. However, today the Valley is threatened by infrastructure projects, including 17 mega dams proposed along the valley’s eponymous river. Local and national opinion on these projects is divided, but one thing is certain—if these are greenlit the social, cultural and ecological fabric of the region will be irreversibly changed. With such looming threats to their habitat, the fate of the Golden Cat and myriad other species remains uncertain.  You can learn more about the work of the Dibang Team on their website and read about the Save Dibang Valley movement here.           The audio story was produced by Tushar Das. You can find him on Instagram and his work on the Brown Monkey Studio website. About the narrators:  Iho Mitapo is an Idu Mishmi from Lower Dibang Valley, Arunachal Pradesh. He has been conducting research on Dibang Valley’s biocultural diversity since 2014 in collaboration with anthropologist Sahil Nijhawan. Iho is the first certified river guide from the Idu community. In 2017, he founded a home-grown ecotourism venture, Dibang Adventures, with the aim of preserving Dibang’s unique landscape while engaging unemployed local youth. He is a member of the Dibang Team, an Idu-led biocultural conservation initiative. He also co-coordinates the activities of Elopa-Etugu Community Eco-Cultural Preserve (EECEP)—a Community Conserved Area spanning 76 km2 in his ancestral land, one of the most biodiverse parts of India. Iho was awarded the prestigious Sanctuary Wildlife Service Award in 2018 for his tireless work and contribution towards the conservation of his homeland. He has delivered talks at several national and international fora and has inspired films and articles on Dibang Valley’s story. He is also a farmer and a father of two wonderfully curious young Idus. Sahil Nijhawan is engineer turned conservation anthropologist. For more than a decade, he has conducted interdisciplinary research in Latin America, Southern Africa and India. He is interested in human-wildlife relations, big cat ecology and conservation, camera trapping methods, indigenous/local concepts of nature, animism and shamanism, hunting sustainability, ritual ecologies, and locally-led conservation. His ongoing research and collaborative conservation work in Northeast India began with his doctoral research which studied the ecological, cultural and political relations between wildlife and the Idu Mishmi people of the Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh, India. Future work will expand research into other ethnic communities within Northeast India to understand the factors that lead to local conservation. He is particularly interested in newer ways of integrating cutting edge technologies with local knowledge and classical ethnographic approaches, research capacity building in NE India and collaborating with local people, artists and educators towards inclusive, ethical and reflexive approaches to conservation research and writing. Sahil is affiliated with ZSL, National Geographic Society, UCL Anthropology, and the ICCA Consortium. He enjoys travelling, learning languages, baking and growing his own food.

In episode three, we chat with Rashmi Devadasan, Rakesh Khanna, and R.T. Samuel, the brilliant minds behind The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF, which has been making waves in the Indian speculative fiction scene.  Rashmi Devadasan is a writer with over twenty-five years of experience in indie publishing, Tamil feature films, and Indian English theatre. At Blaft, she has been part of the selection, editing, design and production of the company's fiction in translation, comic book anthologies, original fiction, and zines. She is the author of Kumari Loves a Monster, a picture book created with the artist Shyam. Her short stories were part of an anthology titled Strange Worlds! Strange Times! Amazing Sci-Fi Stories, published by Speaking Tiger. She is a fan of fungi, moss, lichen, cephalopods, and jellyfish. Rashmi also draws gentle, mostly cuboidal-shaped sample collector robots that do research on a cacti-covered asteroid. You can find Rashmi Devadasan on Instagram @kaimaurundai. Rakesh Khanna grew up in Berkeley, California, of mixed Punjabi and Anglo-American heritage. He co-founded Blaft Publications in Chennai with Rashmi Ruth Devadasan, who is also his wife, in 2008. The company publishes translations of Indian fiction, folklore, weird fiction, and graphic novels. Rakesh is the co-author of Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India, the editor of Blaft's Tamil Pulp Fiction and Gujarati Pulp Fiction anthologies, and co-editor of The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF. Sometimes he edits mathematics textbooks. He is interested in marine invertebrates, demonology, topological graph theory, and banging on things to see what they sound like. You can find Rakesh Khanna on Instagram @blaftpublications.  R.T. Samuel is an editor and independent cultural producer working between London and New Delhi. R is the co-editor of the collection, The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF, helmed by a viral fundraiser that made it the second-most successful Indian publishing campaign in Kickstarter history. The book involved working with nearly 30 authors, translators and artists for close to two years, and features stories from more than six different languages and diverse mediums. From 2021-23, R was also the writer and broadcaster behind the hugely popular (20k plays and counting) underground political and cultural education podcast Clear Blue Skies S1. A lapsed investigative and culture journalist, R is currently pursuing an MSc in Anthropology and Professional Practice at University College London and is always happy to talk about 80s SFF, public radio, futures literacy and Indian hip-hop. You can find R.T. Samuel on Instagram @mithran.rt. In this episode, we discuss the lack of understanding around caste, what’s missing from the Indian SFF scene, the challenges and thrills of putting together an expansive anthology, the importance of translated fiction, Enid Blyton's undeniable influence, and more.  Links to Rashmi Devadasan’s work: Kumari Loves A Monster Links to Rakesh Khanna’s work: Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India – Blaft Publications The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF – Blaft Publications The Blaft Anthology of Gujarati Pulp Fiction – Blaft Publications Links to R.T. Samuel’s work: I Know My Own Animal Heart on Third Eye (Essay) As Long As The Image Lasts: Shaping Memory & Making Imprints At Peers '23 (Essay)  

In episode two of season four, lawyer, author, and editor Gautam Bhatia returns!  When we last spoke to Gautam, he had just published The Horizon, the much-anticipated sequel to The Wall. Since then, he’s published a variety of non-fiction books, helped curate and edit a new anthology, Between Worlds, for Westland Books, and published a new sci-fi novel: The Sentence. The Sentence is genre crossing, with elements of political thrillers, murder mysteries, and old school science fiction. In it, the protagonist, Nila, is faced with an ethical, legal and political conundrum which will change the world as she knows it.  In this episode, we discuss the Indian science fiction landscape, Japanese-style murder mysteries, being fallible humans, the death penalty and carceral justice, and the big fat desi space opera.  You can follow Gautam on X @gautambhatia88 Read Gautam’s Work: The Sentence (2024) The Wall (2020) The Horizon (2022) Between Worlds (2025)

In the first episode of season four, host Anjali Alappat sits down with Gigi Ganguly, to discuss her debut collection of short stories, Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World (Westland Books, 2024). Gigi began her career as a journalist and, after some years of writing for newspapers, she decided to study creative writing at the University of Limerick. Her first novella, One Arm Shorter than the Other, published in 2022, got her nominated for the Subjective Chaos Kind of Award in 2023. Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World focuses on the relationship between the human and more-than-human in a fascinating, speculative way. A man herds clouds, a powerhouse singer conjures rain, a scientist piggybacks on an otter’s consciousness, and much more.  In this episode, we discuss the beauty of Steinbeck’s writing, the peculiar case of Elon Musk, K-dramas, rain songs, dinosaurs and robots.  You can follow Gigi on X @gigiganguly Read Gigi’s Work: Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World One Arm Shorter than the Other  

In this episode of Stories from the Subverse, Nayanika Mathur, Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at the University of Oxford, delves into the conflict between big cats and humans. Nayanika’s book, Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene (2021), was a key source of inspiration for Cataplisms, which examines the intersections of capitalism through a feline lens. In this piece, Nayanika focuses on the governance of nonhuman animals, their entanglements with humans, and what the consequences are.  Mathur talks about the two types of big cats—the seeda saada (straightforward) ones who are scared of humans and keep their distance, and the crooked cats – the adam khor (maneaters) who prey on people. The reasons why some cats become man-eaters, while others avoid humans,  are widely debated. Hypotheses include that the cats have come from elsewhere, due to hunting and poaching, or that they’re children of other man-eaters. This uncertainty has consequences. For example, the tiger Ustad, who resided in Ranthambore, was moved out of the sprawling environment of the national park to be confined in a zoo on the suspicion of being a man-eater. This move stirred a national controversy, eliciting an emotional outpouring and contradictory viewpoints. Ustad’s life may have been restricted without cause. How does one govern the unknown?  Given the precarious status of most big cat species, the fact that hunting crooked cats is the standard solution of the Indian state becomes even more fraught. Especially, as Mathur underlines, when it is difficult to identify which cat is the crooked one. Drastic measures are often taken posthumously to ostensibly abide with the laws of the land and justify a kill.  Mathur emphasises the need to think more deeply about our entanglements with the non-human, revise our laws and institutional practices, and give up our crooked ways.  This audio story is part of the Cataplisms project. You can learn more about it here.  This story was produced by Tushar Das. You can find him on Instagram and his work on the Brown Monkey Studio website.    About Nayanika Mathur Nayanika Mathur is Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies as well as Fellow of Wolfson College at the University of Oxford, UK. Educated at the Universities of Delhi and Cambridge she is an anthropologist with an interest in studying the state, ethnographic methods, nonhumans, and the climate crisis. At Oxford Nayanika is co-director of a research network ‘Climate Crisis Thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences’ which explores the ways through which climate change poses a profound challenge to how the academy – from forms of writing and modes of teaching to disciplinary divisions – operates. Nayanika is the author of two monographs – Paper Tiger: Law, Bureaucracy, and the Developmental State in Himalayan India (Cambridge University Press 2016) and Crooked Cats: Beastly Encounters in the Anthropocene (Chicago University Press, 2021). The first is centred upon the study of bureaucrats and the second on big cats, though they are often confused. In her argument on the governance of big cats this connection - between the paper tiger that is the Indian state and the crooked cats that are entangled with the planetary crisis – becomes, one hopes, clearer. 

In this episode of Stories from the Subverse, we present our first Cataplisms audio story. The Cataplisms project examines our multispecies entanglements, critiques capitalism, and acknowledges the cataclysms at our doorstep, all through a feline lens. In this episode, we hear from someone personally and professionally invested in the fate of big cats and the forests they live in. Raza Kazmi is a conservationist, writer and wildlife historian, who focuses on East Central India. His childhood in Jharkhand’s Palamu region, surrounded by the forest’s flora and fauna, including tigers and leopards, ignited his passion for protecting these cats, and his connection with forest landscapes. Kazmi illustrates how industrialization and capitalism have threatened India’s tigers and other wildlife. A web of mines, dams, and other infrastructure projects within forest areas and critical wildlife corridors pockmark the forests of East Central India. This has fragmented habitats and disrupted migration routes, disorienting animals like elephants and tigers and exacerbating human-wildlife conflict. Kazmi shares that the lack of charismatic wildlife makes it easier to divert forest areas for more mining projects. Both people and animals who depend on these forests are adversely affected.  He delves into the drastic decline of animals, including tigers and leopards, in Palamu due to hunting coupled with the expansion of industries, which has pushed these animals to the brink, crossing an ecological Rubicon, and making urgent conservation intervention critical. Kazmi also talks about the lack of charismatic wildlife, or animals with mass appeal like tigers and elephants, in the area and how that can make it easier to divert forests for more mining or urbanisation projects. The destruction of these ecosystems thanks to expansion and hunting, has led to desperate circumstances. Raza shares the story of a male tiger’s five-year trek across multiple states in search of a mate. The tiger’s struggle underscores how capitalistic development has fragmented natural corridors, forcing wildlife to navigate human-dominated spaces rather than the jungles they belong in. But not all hope is lost. Kazmi emphasizes the pivotal role that local communities play in conservation. They are essential for saving tigers and other wildlife from the destructive forces of industrialization. He believes that, “if the forests are there, there will always be the hope of the wildlife returning.” About Raza Kazmi Raza Kazmi is a conservationist, writer, wildlife historian, storyteller and researcher. His fields of expertise include India’s wildlife and forest administration history, conservation policy and conservation issues afflicting the insurgency-ridden east-central Indian landscape. His writings appear in national newspapers (The Hindu, The Indian Express), online media houses (The Wire, FiftyTwodotin, RoundGlass Sustain) as well as various magazines and journals (Frontline, Seminar, The India Forum, Journal of Bombay Natural History Society, Sanctuary Asia, Cheetal, etc.). He has also contributed essays to edited anthologies. A recipient of the New India Foundation Fellowship for 2021, he is currently writing a book tentatively titled To Whom Does the Forest Belong? The Fate of Green in the Land of Red. He works as a Conservation Communicator with the Wildlife Conservation Trust, and also teaches as a Guest Faculty for Wildlife Management at the Forest Guard Training Schools in Chaibasa and Ranchi in Jharkhand.  

In this episode, we're discussing plants, their exuberant multispecies sexualities and what we can learn from them, how botany is always interlinked with its cultural and historic context including colonialism, and an interdisciplinary approach can make one a better scientist. Host Susan Mathews is in conversation with Professor Banu Subramaniam, the Luella LaMer Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Wellesley College. Trained as a plant evolutionary biologist, Banu engages the feminist studies of science in the practices of experimental biology and is most recently the author of Botany of Empire: Plant Worlds and the Scientific Legacies of Colonialism. The book is about plant worlds and the legacies of colonialism. It focuses on three subfields: plant taxonomy, plant reproductive biology, and plant biogeography. Plant taxonomy is a critical node of colonial botany and its enduring afterlives. Plant reproductive biology chronicles how the imaginaries of gender and race under colonial sexuality were imposed on plants. Finally, understanding plant biogeography through invasion biology centres questions of what belongs, or doesn’t, when and where.

In the eighth episode of the season, host Susan Mathews talks to Pranay Lal, a natural history writer and climate change advocate about the dearth of interest in publishing  books on natural history, the climate crises, the need for natural history museums, how the story of climate is intertwined with all other histories, and more. Pranay Lal is a natural history writer, public health expert, and climate change advocate. He is the author of two books on natural history. Indica: A Deep Natural History of the Indian Subcontinent (2016), his debut book, won the Tata Lit Fest Award and Delhi World Book Fair Award 2017. It was listed among Mint’s 50 most significant books about India since Independence. His second book, Invisible Empire: The Natural History of Viruses (2021), also received multiple awards and was named among the 20 Best Non-fiction Books of 2021 by GQ and won the Green Lit Fest Award 2023. Both books have been translated into several languages.