Author: Jim Corbett
Verrier Elwin/Salim Ali
Editor(s): Ramchandra Guha
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 850
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0195669789
Description
This volume comprises the autobiographical works of three men who had a special relationship with Indian jungles-Jim Corbett, Merrier Elwin and Salem Ali. It comes with an Introduction by Ramachandra Guha and will appeal to all those interested in literature, anthropology, cultural survival and the social history of modern India.
The work of Corbett, Elwin, and Ali is notable for its spotlighting of aspects of Indian life for the most part neglected by historians, journalists, anthropologists, novelists, and autobiographers. For the classic opposition of literature and politics in India, as elsewhere in the modern world, is between City and Village. Gandhi wished to reground Indian political life in the countryside Nehru to bring the best of science and industry to the peasant, Chaudhuri to move from the village to the world of civilizations as embodied by the city. Their preoccupation with this polarity was completely reproduced by their contemporaries. One might loudly declare a preference for one over the other. But, as with Gandhi, Nehru or Chaudhuri, one could not escape the basic opposition of the westernizing City and the caste-and-tradition-bound Hindu Village.
REVIEWS
Corbett, simple and direct, his finger always on the pulse of the story, his descriptions, cinematically vivid. Elwin, even ready with the perfect original aphorism and nuggets of simple wisdom al doled out with a twinkle in the eye, And Salim Ali, whose pithy, wry language was backed with a laser-guided skill for picking exactly the right word.
-Ranjit Lal, Indian Review of Books
What shines through their work is a love of natural beauty and cultural diversity.
-Indian Express
Contents
PART I
INTRODUCTION
The Queen of the Village
Kunwar Singh
Mothi
Pre-Red-Tape Days
The Law of the Jungles
The Brothers
Sultana: India's Robin Hood
Loyalty
Budhu
Lalajee
Chamari
Life at Mokameh Ghat
PART II
Angel Infancy
Youth of Delight
Saints and Satyagrahis
Bishops and Bayonets
Dear as the Moon
Philanthropology
The Earth is Round
Passage to NEFA
Travels in the NEFA Highlands
Growth of a Philosophy
Ultimate Ambition
The Elusive Treasure
Index
PART III
PROLOGUE
Special Providence
Schooldays
Burma 1914-17
Interlude at Bombay and Marriage
Memories of Burma
Bombay 1924-9
Jobs 1923-9 and Germany 1929-30
Hyderabad State Ornithological Survey
Interlude in the Nilgiris
Dehra Dun and Bahawalpur 1934-9
Afghanistan
Ornithological Pilgrimage to Kailas Manasarovar 1945
Loke Wan Tho
Flamingo City
Bharatpur
Bastar 1949
Motorcycling in Europe
Hamid Ali
Five Other Men
Scientific Ornithology and Shikar
The Books I Wrote
Prizes
The Thrills of Birdwatching
Epilogue
APPENDICES
Hugh Whistler's Suggestions on How to Run a Bird Survey 1931
Ragbag
Glossary of India Words
Index
PLATES