The Wild Heart of India Nature in the City, the Country, and the Wild

T.R. Shankar Raman, Senior Scientist, Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore

T.R. Shankar Raman (aka Sridhar) is a constant wanderer with a miserable sense of direction. And yet, having a sense of direction is only important if you have a destination in mind. Which is why, even though he rarely knows where he is, he is seldom lost. When he is not doing field research on forest ecology or mulling over environmental issues, you can find him walking in the rainforests watching birds and trees, or with his nose in a book. Living in the Anamalai Hills, he is part of a team stitching together fragmented rainforests-one sapling at a time, year upon year upon decade. After he is done plucking the leeches from his ankles and dusting the earth from his fingers, he writes. He writes from his varied experiences in natural history, in conservation practice, in directionless wandering. His reflective essays are born of a conviction that there remains a space for quiet yet insistent voices making a case for immersive and deeper perceptions of nature and our place in it.
Shankar Raman

works as a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation (www.ncf-india.org) and is the author of numerous academic papers, book chapters, blog posts, and creative nonfiction essays and articles for newspapers and magazines. His partner Divya Mudappa and he lead a long-term rainforest conservation and restoration programme from a field research station in the Anamalai Hills. Their home in the mountains is visited by neighbourly leopards and temperamental housecats.

List of Abbreviations
Author's Note
Preface
Prologue: Where I Had Always Wanted to Be
PART I Field Days: An Ecological Education
? Six Seasons in the City
? Night Life in Chennai
? Lone Palm Tree, Sir!
? The Tropicbirds of Memory
? Fording the Flood
? Answering the Call of the Hoolock Gibbon
? Bamboo Bonfires and Biodiversity
? In Clouded Leopard Country
? The Dance of the Bamboos
? Bird by Bird in the Rainforest
? Abode of Rainforest Rarities
? Shadowing Civets
? Kalakad: Three Years in the Rainforest
? Feathered Foresters
? Deep Forest: Namdapha
PART II Conservation: A world of wounds
? The Beleaguered Blackbuck
? A Bounty of Deer
? Hornbills: Giants among Forest Birds
? A Life of Courage and Conviction
? Cavities, Caves, and a Caveat
? Life in the Garbage Heap
? Death on the Highway
? Natural Engineering: India's Green Infrastructure
? The Long Road to Growth
? Watering Down Forest Protection
? Protecting the Wildlife Protection Act
? Living with Leopards in Countryside and City
? The Culling Fields
? Bamboozled by Land-use Policy: Jhum and Oil Palm in Mizoram
? The March of the Triffids
? How Green is Your Tea?
? Rhythms of Renewal
? Conserving a Connected World
? Integrating Ecology and Economy
? The Health of Nations: The Other Invisible Hand
PART III Reflections: Our Place in Nature
? The Wild Heart of India
? Close Encounters of the Third Kind
? Who gives a Fig?
? Welcome Back, Warblers
? Musician of the Monsoon
? The Caricature Monkey
? Turning the Turtle
? The Deaths of Osama
? An Apology to the Iyerpadi Gentleman
? An Enduring Relevance
? River Reverie
? Behind the Onstreaming
? Earth-scar Evening
? The Butchery of the Banyans
? Of Tamarinds and Tolerance
? Forest of the Aliens
? The Tall Tree
? The Pigeon's Passengers
? The Mistletoe Bird
? The Walk that Spun the World
? Aesthetics in the Desert
? Twinges of Longing, Passing Shadows
? Being with Dolphins
? Sentience for Conservation
Epilogue: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: A Personal Journey Into the Wild Heart of India
Notes
Common and scientific names of species
Select Bibliography
Publication Credits
Index
Acknowledgements
About the Author