New Delhi, Jan. 24 -- The city beside the layer of concrete

A sound cuts through the quiet, hibernating winter air.

Woo-woo, woo-woo-woo. The call is lovelorn, intense, and a bit of a cackle. It comes to me in the middle of the night, that time when the air is thick with a darkness so intense one must wait till morning to truly see something. But I don't try to look. I wait to hear, my ears pricked, for the sound from my childhood. Did I dream it?

In Delhi of the early 1990s, this sound came as per schedule each day. As the sun slipped down, two things cut through the dusk, so sharp they sheared away the day's weariness. One was a peacock calling, a lusty eow-eow-eeowen, followed by noisy flapping on to a eucalyptus tree that grew outs...