Any newcomer to officialdom in New Delhi would discover soon enough that at work he has to watch his step lest he slips and falls, causing more than minor injury to his career. Like the potholes and pitfalls on the roads, there is a lurking danger in every file he would deal with. But, what has these cautionary words got to do with birds? Ha! there hangs the tale of the unwary Deputy Secretary who had just arrived at the hallowed portals of the government straight from a district in Central India in the early 1970s, and the birds of Bharatpur. At Bharatpur in Rajasthan is the Keoladeo Ghana Bird Sanctuary, the winter sojourn of thousands of birds from far and near. They come from the icy...
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