We can now adopt an animal each, announce the good folks at Sanjay Gandhi National Park. They have just lost Beauty, a young Royal Bengal tigress. This may be a great idea.

The city has never lacked fans of all creatures wild and wonderful. My thoughts turn to the time a big cat would roam my home: no less than a pet panther on the premises. The Breach Candy building I live in, named Peacock Palace — for colourful specimens of the national bird once strutting here — was earlier Mecklai Mansion.