The Good Doctors

A Mumbai dentist couple-turned-conservationists is installing solar water pumps across India's forests, offering a lifeline to animals

- TANISHA SAXENA

Two leopards, their dappled coats blending seamlessly into the dry, cracked earth, crouch at the edge of a shrinking waterhole, lapping at the last murky remnants of what was once a thriving pond. Elsewhere, a tigress wades into stagnant water, her golden eyes fixed on something unseen perhaps the deepening silence of a landscape struggling to sustain itself.

Scenes like these have become all too familiar to doctors PV Subramaniam and Sarita Subramaniam. The Mumbai-based dentists-turned-conservationists have spent more than two decades traversing India's forests, bearing witness to both their breathtaking beauty and slow, devastating decline. As climate change accelerates and natural water sources disappear, India's wildlife is engaged in a desperate, often unseen struggle for survival.