Cirrus@Austlit

'It was late afternoon on a Wednesday in November 1987. I had spent the day strolling the narrow roads of Keoladeo National Park near Bharatpur in eastern Rajasthan. The park was a tapestry of life. There were cormorants, kingfishers and flamingos, chital, nilgai and sambar. I had even met an impressively big lizard, at least half as long as me. And there had been a large black and white crane not so much eating a fish as playing with it. First he would dart his beak into the pond, snatch the fish and give it three or four hearty shakes. Then he would fling it down into the water and grab it and start the game all over again. Proverbial behaviour for a cat, but a bit unsettling in a bird. The one animal in short supply in the park that day was people. Aside from a scattering of tourists, a ranger or two and a cluster of children on their way home from school, I had met no-one all day.' (Introduction)