New Delhi, June 20 -- hot, peppered with humidity, blending into the sameness of week days. I was walking in a park in Delhi. It was hard to focus on my surroundings in the heat though, and I marched single-mindedly towards an inky, wet patch of shade. I wasn't the only one. Ahead of me, a large bird streaked across the ground, reaching the shade first. It paused and cocked its head. Then it smoothly stabbed the ground with its long and curved beak. That beak re-emerged a moment later, scythe-like, and in it writhed a long snake in the last throes of life. In a second the snake was gone, and the ibis had had its meal. It strode ahead again, stabbing the ground like it hadn't just consumed a long snake with the ease of a girl slurping down...