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In black and white
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Eye in the Jungle, the latest compilation of photographer M. Krishnan's works, showcases the spirit of the most respected name in Indian wildlife photography
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The rasam-drinking, gun-loathing Krishnan worked only with black-and-white photography and manufactured his own camera
ECCENTRIC GENIUS M. Krishnan insisted on making his own cameras and working only in black and white
Everyone who knew or worked with M. Krishnan, the man described by writer Ramachandra Guha as unquestionably "the biggest name in wildlife photography", tends to jealously guards his encounters with the man like they were the precious piece of memory that they undoubtedly are. At the launch of Eye in the Jungle, a commemorative collection of the legend's photographs and writings, Guha, who edited the earlier collection, Nature's Spokesman, said in his biographical sketch written for the new book that Krishnan cared little for what the world thought of him: "But that must be a matter of regret — a Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship, a Padma Shri, a place in the Global 500 Roll of Honour of the United Nations Environment Programme, meant little to him. But a dozen collections of his work could have meant a lot to us."
Interesting encounter
When told about the book launch organised by Vidya Virkar of Strand Bookstall, environmental consultant H.C. Sharatchandra had his own triumphant brush with Krishnan to recall — they had an altercation about the botanical specimen that Sharatchandra had brought to him, and in order to prove himself right, back they went into the jungles to collected 40 specimens, and pored over each; and Sharatchandra was proved right.
Krishnan was graceful as ever in defeat, and as a reward, accorded Sharatchandra a rare honour: the finicky man who never allowed anyone accompanying him to bring his own camera along let him come along with his own, and even gave him a photography lesson he cherishes to this day.
Eye in the Jungle, compiled by Ashish Chandola and Shanti Chandola, with Bangalore's own ace wildlife photographer T.N.A. Perumal, has been five years in the making, and the unputdownable volume comes across as the labour of love it is meant to be. Krishnan knew the tiger and the elephant well, but he also wrote lovingly about the jackal, the ghorpad, and the spotted owl.
Krishnan, as Guha described him was the offbeat TamBram who spurned the security of a regular job and freelanced all his life. Even the one "steady job" he held in the employ of the Maharaja of Sandur (the seat of the royal family to which former minister M.Y. Ghorpade belongs) for eight years was actually many jobs under one paymaster. This is where the naturalist in Krishnan came to the fore, even as the "dreary" jobs of being school master, judge, publicity officer and political secretary sustained him.
This was where Ghorpade cut his teeth on photography with Krishnan, and Perumal's own enduring relationship with photography, as Krishnan saw it, began.
When Sandur disappeared in 1949 along with 520 other princely states, Krishnan returned to Madras, began living in the tiled cottage his father had built, and for the next 47 years made a precarious but always honest living as a writer and photographer. He wrote for The Statesman, and his photographs appeared in The Hindu, The Illustrated Weekly of India, and Shankar's Weekly.
In the introduction to the book, Shanti Chandola evokes the picture of a man who could have walked straight out of R.K. Narayan's Malgudi. She met him in his home on Radhakrishnan's Salai (Edward Eliott's Road then) — it was a typical old Madras house, complete with a washing stone, shaded over by an old mango tree. There were chikoo and guava, gooseberry and the curryleaf bush.
That motto!
Shanti went up a flight of stairs to find Krishnan in his favourite easy chair, smoking a Berkeley, and a spiral bound notebook near him with the words "Nil Bastardum Carborundum!" (Don't let the b- - - - --s get you down!" which he always stencilled on the cover of each of his diaries.
On learning that Shanti was a naturalist at a jungle resort, he had retorted: "You get paid to be a naturalist?"
The rasam-drinking, gun-loathing Krishnan worked only with black-and-white photography. This ablest naturalist of all (mostly Europeans and Rajput or Muslim royalty) actually manufactured his own camera as the ones on the market did not suit his strong preferences.
The Chandolas and Perumal began work on Eye in the Jungle in 2001. Perumal, in his tribute, talks of Krishan advocating the policy of maximum protection to wildlife and its habitat, with least interference by man.
The book is published by the Universities Press, and the Chandolas received a research grant from ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment). Had Indu Krishnan, (she shyly accepted the Padma Shri as Krishanan was away in a forest) who died before the book could be completed, not painstakingly collected all his writings, a treasure would have been lost to posterity.
ALLADI JAYASRI
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