India, Jan. 6 -- Returning to the city where he spent almost a decade of his young adult life, renowned author Amitav Ghosh used the Delhi leg of the launch of his latest novel, Ghost-Eye, to speak not just about fiction, but about what he sees as the slow erosion of the institutions and landscapes of the national capital that had once shaped him.

In conversation with writer Keshava Guha at the Ambassador Hotel in Khan Market, Ghosh ranged easily between the imaginative world of his new novel and the city he returned to - touching on the decline of Delhi University, the fragility of ecosystems, and what he described as a growing public push-back against ecological damage. He pointed to the recent debates around the Aravallis as a sign of...