He is right to be both enthusiastic and bemused. India has 15 species of wild cat living within its 1.1 million square miles, accounting for 40% of all species found worldwide. Phrased another way, it has more wild cat species than not only any other country in the world, but any single continent – other than the one it's in. Were it not for the loss of the Asiatic cheetah – driven to brink of extinction in India by centuries of persecution, then finally eradicated from the country in the early 1950s – 16 of the 40 living species of wild cat would be found in a single country.

“They are just so regal – when I see any wild cat in India, or anywhere in the world, they almost make my heartbeat stop,” Kadur says of his feline fascination. “And not just the big cats. Cats like the Asiatic wild cat, the jungle cat, the fishing cat, the rusty spotted cat, the Pallas’s cat... they are so hard to actually see in the wild, they are so skittish. Trying to get one on camera is next to impossible.”

“I marvel at it myself,” says Kadur, who as well as enjoying the benefits of this diversity, occasionally comes into contact with its logistical hiccups, too.

“I was supposed to be going to film snow leopards,” he says. “Then I got a call to tell me there were jungle cats on the Deccan plateau. A den with four cubs! So I skipped the snow leopards and went to the Deccan plateau, 45 degrees C, hot as hell – then a week later I flew back to Bangalore, then the same night I flew to Ladakh. The next morning was in -20 C with the snow leopards. I had to become an all-in-one feline and learn very quickly to adapt. It was very taxing on the body.”

(Related: Images show the diversity of India's wild cats.)