Asides

Neha Sinha Captures the Beauty of the Wild and Wilful | EXCERPT

Is there any animal we love and hate as much as the Royal Bengal Tiger? Tigers are feared and poached, but they also endure, becoming pin-ups for candlelight marches. Indian elephants are trapped by railway lines and fences, but are reclaiming their bodies and colonizing new areas in central India. And in our dirty cities, the sparkling Plain Tiger Butterfly flourishes as one of our last links to wildlife.

Meet some of the iconic Indian species featured in Neha Sinha’s Wild and Wilful, that are in dire need of conservation and heart.

Rosy Starlings and COVID
While the continent was conjoined in going through COVID-19, Rosy starlings demonstrated that our transboundary connections could also be those of joy. And in the chaos, it was wild birds, who don’t speak English, who had carried this message.

Beautiful rose bird, Rosy Starling (Pastor roseus) standing on the log

 

Elephants
Elephants remember precise things that look like nothing to us. A tree could be a flag post. A waterbody is a reminder of a birth. A rock is a turn in the road.

Ganga Elephant, Credits: Avijan Saha

 

Rhesus macaque monkeys
People feeding monkeys in India has led to a chain of unfortunate events. Monkeys are fed at temples and chased outside them.

Rhesus macaque monkey, Credits: Neha Sinha

 

Tiger butterflies
I realized then that if I followed the butterfly, I would find the enchanted places in the metropolis—places that stood tall and resilient: true Banyans growing through dust.

Striped Tiger Butterfly, Credits: Neha Sinha

 

Great Indian Bustard
In the way Great Indian Bustard sees the desert, it is clear it can navigate the heat, the lack of water, the endless dunes, the scarcity of water, the temperature extremes. Power lines, it cannot.

Great Indian Bustard, Credits: Dhritiman Mukherjee

 

Indian cobra
The Cobra, saddled with a phantasmagoria of milk, gemstones and kisses on the mouth, would prefer a plain little mouse and a hole in the dirt instead

King Cobra, Credits: Jignasu Dolia

 

Amur falcons
For the birders who saw the Amur falcons being butchered, the tragedy was not just of a little wild bird being killed, it was also in the fact that the bird’s long, heroic, circular journey had reached an abrupt, full stop.

Female Amur falcon (Falco amurensis) – Very Rare Passage Migrant

 

Tiger
In tiger land, death walks with the living, where tigers alternate between being gods, nuisances, mothers and beasts.

Portrait of wild Tiger stalking through tall grasses in Ranthambhore national park, India.

 

Crocodile
People look for relatability even in non-human faces. But the perfect predator has never felt the need to be relatable.

A mugger crocodile basking on a rock along river Kaveri at the Ranganthittu bird santuary

 

To read more, pre-order your copy of Wild and Wilful today!

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