Focusing on woods and trees

Book review of Reliving the Memories of an Indian Forester: Memoir of S Shyam Sunder

This is a rare memoir that abounds in anecdotes with an insider’s view of four decades of the Indian forest landscape. S Shyam Sunder, who joined the Madras Forest Service in 1952 and retired in 1990, was a veteran forester.

Clearly based on his dairies as also a prodigious memory, this book is edited by his son and environmental policy scholar Shivsharan Someshwar. The book interweaves his career with wider institutional and environmental changes, some of which he was to help reshape. But the editor’s hand is light and it has the ease of a fine narrative.

Mr Shyam Sunder is not