Age-old treasures on display at Mumbai University’s rock and fossil exhibition

As a teenager, VikramRao spent several hours during college trips scouting for unusually shaped rocks along riverbeds. “It was a favourite pastime of mine—trying to break open the rocks, examining the colours, the crystals,” he recalls. The rock phase lasted a good deal longer than it does for the average teen though. Rao went on to study geology, and now juggles a career in civil engineering with a passion for rocks, minerals and fossils.His collection of over 400 pieces, painstakingly assembled from across the country and abroad, fills two rooms. The pride of place belongs to the massive, fossilised jaw of a Mosasaur—an extinct species of reptile.
Next Saturday, Mumbaikars can troop in to gaze not only at this but several other geological treasures. There will be meteorite remnants, fossils of other extinct animals like the mammoth, dinosaur eggs, colourful slabs as well as glimmering geodes and zeolites. An exhibition of rocks, minerals and fossils has been organized at Mumbai University’s Centre for Extra-Mural Studies. Over 1,000 specimens from the collections of Rao, international expert MF Makki and the fossil collection at Pune’s Deccan College will be on display.
Among the collection, sourced from travels and other hobbyists abroad, is also a family heirloom of sorts. A huge clam fossil had been found by his father in Worli four decades ago. “Glass, diamonds, steel...it’s interesting to see what the materials that we are surrounded by look like in their original form,” says Rao. “Each comes from Mother Earth and the different compositions of minerals, how they are formed over hundreds of years—it is a fascinating thing to observe.”