India, Sept. 12 -- Some Indigenous communities such as the Maori of the Aotearoa New Zealand understand time as a non-linear concept and navigate their relationship with the non-human environment accordingly. This helps them visualise life and their actions in a scale larger than the "present", shaping how they care for the planet and prepare for crises.

Rajat Chaudhuri's 2018 climate fiction novel The Butterfly Effect encourages its readers to think about the world in a similar way, pushing the limitations we have set on time, geography and species.

The binary-smashing thriller is now being taught in the English literature curriculum at universities within and outside India, with the Delhi University recently adopting it in their "Genr...