India, Nov. 1 -- The cellphone is the most insidious of intrusions, its distractive apps in no mean measure the cause of dystopian social relations. Its annoying, insistent buzz can be likened to a housefly whose destiny it is to never be swatted! The gentry born in the decades following Independence thanks the high heavens that for some decades it was spared the advent of this technological Frankenstein. But DIG, Ludhiana range, Sandeep Goel, a bird-loving cop who grew up in the princely state of Faridkot surrounded by peacocks, parakeets and sparrows among rambling red, royal buildings, nurtures a wistful variation.

"I wish we had handy cellphones in those days because I could have taken so many bird photos and captured such beautiful ...