These are not trophy tales of the photographer or his ancestor, the hunter. Nor are these entreaties of the save-the-world ilk. Curious and clinical, irreverent but reasoned, these essays and exposes raise a few fascinating questions to better understand the human-nature interfaces in an increasingly crowded and edgy India.

Alongside the gripping whodunit and the sobering myth-buster are the stories of a cursed river, a tiger reserve on sale, a desert snake that 'breathes' death, a tribe that threatens to die if forced out of its forests and a species destined to become the loneliest on earth.

The result of over a decade of investigations in the Indian wild and the human ecosystem around it, The Age of Endlings is as compelling as it is unflinching.