India, May 17 -- The rotating hours of blackness that shroud the blue planet have been described as the 'Queen of Darkness'. In the foothill jungles of the Shivaliks, the night is a display of the lives of creatures that dread daylight. By casting away the ingrained human fears of darkness, an odyssey into the jungles and waterbodies affords one a spectacle from the 'other side of planetary paradise'.

It is not difficult to imagine fireflies (jugnoos) indulging in a pulsating dance over placid waters lit by moonlight and stars. But what about a pair of long-tailed nightjars indulging in manoeuvres over water in perfect unison, like the show of the IAF's Suryakiran Aerobatic Team. The nightjars pluck insects rising from the placid, mossy ...