TAMIL
Tryst with wildlife
KUMARAN SATHASIVAM
THAAMARAI POOTHTHA THADAAKAM: S. Theodore Baskaran; Uyirmmai Pathippagam, 11/29 Subramaniam Street, Abiramapuram, Chennai-600018. Rs. 100.
THEODORE BASKARAN’S articles on nature have been appearing in newspapers and magazines since at least the 1970s to the present. They, along with the work of a very small number of other writers, formed practically the only source of information on Indian wildlife available to me when I was a schoolboy in Madurai. Baskaran is distinguished in that he writes both in English and in Tamil; this fact and the many years over which his writings have been published draw to mind the late M. Krishnan. Thaamarai Pooththa Thadaakam is a collection of essays that have appeared in magazines in recent years.
The book is vintage Baskaran, the articles covering a broad variety of living beings, some found close to home and others in faraway places. The tree shrew, slender loris, sarus crane, domestic animals and a rare lady’s-slipper orchid of Courtallam all feature in these essays.
There are accounts of Mauritius and its imperilled fauna, Mukurti in the Nilgiris and tigers in Kanha, as well as a look at flamingos in Africa — the pink-studded image of the last a metaphorical lotus-covered pond has given the book its title.
The first few essays, however, deal with issues such as global warming, the deleterious effects of unbridled wildlife tourism and the severed links of humans, particularly city dwellers, with nature.
Baskaran points out that the people of Tamil Nadu have been late in waking up to earth-rocking matters such as climate change.
The article on the aboriginal people of Australia, interesting as it is, is somewhat out of place in the book.
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