The Jungle Book

AROUND four in the evening, after a late lunch, Pamela Gale Malhotra is standing at a bay window in her living room looking out at a picture-perfect landscape—a rainsoaked forest with the Brahmagiri hills framing the backdrop.

- Ajay Sukumaran

This vast forest in south Coorg—once a coffee plantation—is the home of Anil Malhotra, 78, and his wife Pamela, 67. It’s a fairyland set amidst a primordial symphony of a gurgling stream and the call of the crickets and grasshoppers. They call it the Save Animals Initiative (SAI) Sanctuary, 300 acres of native rainforest through which elephants and tigers freely saunter.

Every morning, in more hospitable weather, Pamela and Anil set forth into this grove—their walks take an hour and a half usually unless she’s checking on the dozen or so camera traps dotting the landscape, replacing batteries, swapping memory cards or switching locations. Since it’s a wilderness, the couple merely follows the paths the elephants have cleared. “We’ve set up this private model,” Anil tells