All this, though, pales in comparison with what is not only possible, but really happening elsewhere. In recent years, dogs have been mysteriously vanishing from the streets and gardens of Mumbai. Dramatic CCTV footage is emerging of the culprit: leopards, creeping ghost-like by night into the city for an easy meal. I was there one rainy season not so long ago. The then environment minister, Aaditya Thackeray, took me to see where the leopards live. We battled through the thronged streets of Juhu before turning off into another world, the Sanjay Gandhi national park; an expansive cluster of hills at the heart of the city draped with a dreamy, richly flowered forest, laced with streams of clear water, alive with birdsong.
