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Magazine
LIFE AROUND
Our feathered friends
RANJIT LAL
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This is an eclectic and entertaining collection of writings about birds and birders.
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Birds of India: A Literary Anthology, edited by Abdul Jamil Urfi, Oxford University Press, 2008, p.385, Rs.650.
As birds and birding rapidly gain popularity in India, the number of books on birds that has been published in the last decade or so has also risen considerably, rather like (to choose a rather politically inappropriate comparison!) the number of makes of automobiles now available as compared to earlier. This wonderfully entertaining and eclectic collection of writings about birds and birders and ornithologists can only make birds even more popular in the public perception, with hopefully the add-on benefits of such popularity (better conservation, better conservation, better conservation!) accruing in their favour too.
For a start, Urfi has picked a star cast of writers: The contributors include Kipling, the emperor Jahangir, Khushwant Singh, Mark Twain, Maulana Azad, Jim Corbett, M. Krishnan, Jawaharlal Nehru, EHA, Salim Ali, Jerdon, Malcolm Macdonald, E.P. Gee, Nissim Ezekiel, Douglas Dewar, Peter Jackson, Madhav Gadgil, A.R. Rahmani, Otto Pfister, Theodore Baskaran, Zai Whitaker and Zafar Futehally, pretty much the Who’s Who of Natural History writing in India, past and present.
For reading pleasure
He has chosen the pieces, he says in his introduction, not merely on the basis of their information content or ornithological value, but majorly on the basis of their ranking high in reading pleasure. This was something Salim Ali too had put a great value on, “I set great store by readability, and consider the extra time and effort involved in achieving this well worthwhile”, he wrote. And here, Urfi has come up trumps: every piece is a gem: sheer good, sometimes classy writing backed up by sharp observation and comment; of course some shine brighter than others, but that will always be the case.
The book has been divided into six broad sections namely, Birds in the Human Mindscape; Sport, Entertainment and Falconry; Naturalists on the Prowl; Natural History and Science; Birdwatching and Beyond; and Personalities and Controversies. It’s not the kind of book you need to start at the beginning and read chronologically, but you can dip in anywhere at will, and enjoy yourself equally. Of course, by the end of it you will pull favourites as I did. Mark Twain’s wonderful piece, “In Praise of the Indian Crow”, is surely a classic. Maulana Azad’s “Sparrows of Ahmad Nagar Fort Prison” came as a pleasant surprise, and Mary Anne Weaver’s “Hunting with the Sheiks” on the subject of Bustard hunting in Pakistan was a shocking eye-opener on the extremes and expense wealthy Arabs will go to in relentless pursuit of the poor bird. (We too, had got briefly entangled in the bustard hunting controversy, before better sense prevailed.)
A range of styles
And then there is the inimitable “EHA” (Edward Hamilton Aitken) writing about “Peter and His Relations” and Malcolm Macdonald’s “Green Parakeets in a Delhi Garden”, which struck a special chord, because I’ve observed parakeets behave in exactly the same manner in my own garden as he’s described so well and with a wealth of such detail. Some of the pieces do bring on twinges of regret; Siberian Cranes and Pink Headed Ducks were not so long ago to be found in various parts of the country in acceptable numbers; they’re gone now and you can’t help wondering uneasily, how many other species are destined to follow as we go on rampantly “developing” and trampling everything in our path. Madhusudan Kutti asks the interesting question “Are Warblers Less Important than Tigers?” another eye-opener that gives the “little brown jobs” their due place in the sun. And by the end of it, if you’re getting a little bit tired of birds, birders and their ilk, there is always Zai Whitaker to sympathise with you and help you out as she writes about “Misty Binoculars and Other Strategies for Survival among Birdwatchers”.
Apart from the lay reader, I think this book ought to be made mandatory reading in schools — both for language and content. There’s a wonderful range of writing styles on display, and the content is pretty much faultless too, so — to use yet another politically inappropriate metaphor — you can kill two birds with one stone!
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