There has been a spate of leopard attacks in Pune’s neighbouring district, Ahmednagar …oops, Ahilyanagar. The victims of these brutal attacks are invariably the subaltern. They are impoverished Dalits and Adivasi tribals who live in remote villages, far away from cities. Tigers and leopards mean very different things to them from what they mean to bourgeois urban men and women, and their clones, who, dressed in shorts, go to tiger reserves in their off-roader Thars and Jimnys with their expensive cameras. So disrespectful are they of the environment that on a recent visit to the Tadoba reserve, I even saw them smoking in their safari Gypsies, in blatant violation of the rules.

Often, as I’m driving on highways out of Pune, I see illustrated road signs that say ‘Wild Animal Crossing’. Moto

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