There are times in your life, when, in an unexpected moment, you come face to face with yourself. It could happen anytime, to anyone. It could happen over your breakfast as aroma and sound—hot coffee swirling in your cup and a dosa sizzling on the stove—suddenly release a sensory cascade of recollections as history intersects happenstance. It could happen in a memory or a dream, where past and present merge into a fused and frozen time indistinct, even, from the future. It could happen while you walk down a street and momentarily catch your own full-length reflection in a shining, shop-front glass. In that moment, the person who you were confronts the one who you have become. Chances are, it might catch you unawares.

  • Rainforest fragment in the Valparai plateau (Photo courtesy: Ganesh Raghunathan)
  • Elephants on the move through tea fields with rainforests in the distance (Photo: Divya Mudappa)
  • Great Hornbill in flight
  • A landscape of forests, wildlife, and people.

… This post first appeared in my blog on the Coyotes Network on 15 November 2013. Read more in the Prologue of The Wild Heart of India: Nature and Conservation in the City, the Country, and the Wild.