When we think of Delhi, we think of infrastructure, money, and images of the metro snaking through the city. Hives of humans densely populate this ant of a capital with their comings and goings. Yet there is an undeniable expanse of flora and fauna that breathes alongside its people. Against this backdrop, the city is wild for many reasons. Delhi is many things at once.

In the late 2000s, biologist Neha Sinha had just graduated and was working as a journalist in Delhi. Five years in, she realised it wasn’t for her, she wanted to work in conservation. “I was focusing too much on negativity,” she said. “I was only reporting what was wrong in the world but I wanted to be part of the solution.”

Almost two decades later, she works with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in New Delhi. Her new book, Wild Capital: Discovering Nature in Delhi, takes on the remarkable task of translating Delhi’s biodiversity to its readers. She writes that she wants to “revel in their non-verbal sense-scape. I must translate what they try to tell me.” What stands out is her awareness that nature has its own agency; she never imposes a rigid meaning upon it, and so...

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