New Delhi, Oct. 24 -- Nature provides a template for endurance

Near my study table, a spider spun her web. It was a perfect shape, the kind we imagined the world wide web to be when we first got the internet-shaped like a wheel, kinetic and mind-bending, with spokes and parallel lines and an insatiable mind quivering at the centre. Each day the web disappeared and then appeared again, like a connection looking to establish itself. My spider was an orb-weaver, and I thought she was female. As I headed out for travel and long days when coming home meant a cooling darkness, I briefly forgot about her.

In Corbett tiger reserve, the air was even cooler than Delhi. The trees touched the sky. A Pied hornbill yodelled from a banyan, and smaller...