Immortal eye

The grand old man of India’s conservation movement comes alive in this affectionate pictorial biography.

I am sure the author, an associate of “Billy”, will empathise when I say that I picked up Tiger of Dudhwa with some sorrow. For one, turning the pages stirred an old grouse, a desperate wish that I was born in “the Billy Arjan Singh” era to have been witness to the remarkable life this pictorial tribute illustrates.

The other reason is the immense sense of loss: Billy has gone. I knew Billy, first and largely, through his books (and each of them is a must-read), and then made a pilgrimage to Tiger Haven, where I was fortunate to spend some time with him. He was “old” then —in body, but certainly not in spirit. Well into his 80s, he ferociously guarded his turf, Dudhwa, charging at intruders and encroachers, fighting to get the Soheli-Neora rivers desilted, lobbying for a separate wildlife service to manage parks, despairing over the fate of the tiger…Billy was indomitable, unstoppable in his single-minded purpose of life: Conservation.

 

The book is a fitting tribute, lucidly written and lavishly illustrated to depict the extraordinary life of an extraordinary man. Tiger of Dudhwa is best described as a pictorial biography of Billy Arjan Singh, best known for bringing up Tara, a zoo-born captive tigress, and her controversial release into the wild. Then, of course, there were the other big cats in Billy’s entourage; three leopards — one a charming Prince, so named since the leopard is “the Prince of Cats”. And Juliette and Harriet — presented to him by former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who, as the book points out, was very supportive of Billy’s cause.

It’s there in black-and-white and colour: Billy holding a full-grown leopard; steering a boat, taking his passenger (a leopard tenderly holding her cub) to safety; on a walk followed by a tiger and a dog (Ellie: the wonder dog who held her ground against, if not dominated, the big cats); all three animals — tiger, leopard, dog —locked not in combat, but in play, and, my favourite, Billy caught laughing, in a tiger-hug! Little wonder, then, that it was this part of Billy’s life that caught the imagination of the world and gripped everyone’s attention, sometimes shadowing his monumental contribution and unstinting devotion to the cause of wildlife, well-captured in this book.

Tiger of Dudhwa goes back to his childhood, his days as a shikari (he shot his first leopard at 12, and tiger at 14) — and his transformation from a trigger-happy child to a committed conservationist. It traces his metamorphosis, his angst at seeing the wildlife — particularly the huge herds of swamp deer that lived in the forests around — vanishing under the onslaught of the gun and destruction of habitat, and his effort to grant the last herds a haven. It was Billy who relentlessly pursued and was able to have Dudhwa protected first as a sanctuary, then extended as a national park. The book reproduces the letter from the prime minister’s secretariat dated December 31, 1973 announcing a “new year gift” of declaring North Kheri a national park. Billy was instrumental in getting a ban on hunting, fought relentlessly for Dudhwa and surrounding forests, took up the cause of the misunderstood “man-eating tigers”, was critical of the functioning of the forest department, state policies and spared no one in his fierce protection of wildlife.

Much before climate change became the fashion, Billy worried that, “if we do not change our ways fundamentally, the time is not far when the climate of the earth will change significantly”. In an interview to the author, he said, “The entire ecological web is delicately woven with many variables, and it only requires the disruption of one to dislocate the entire course of life on this planet.”

Billy loved the tiger because it was the tiger, yet he drove home the ecological imperative of its existence. “We must understand our relationship with the tiger — he plays an important role in maintaining the health and the biodiversity of our eco-system, and his presence is an indicator of the well-being of the eco-system.”

Tiger of Dudhwa is an easy read, enlivened by a remarkable set of photographs — the quest for which is detailed and is particularly interesting. One gathers it wasn’t an easy job putting Billy’s life together. The pictures itself make the book worthwhile. Personally, what gives me— and I am sure Boparai — great satisfaction is the joy the making of the book would have given Billy — reliving memories and, as the author says, pointing out the mistakes! Billy was happy with the book, and the author, yet another ardent admirer, couldn’t have asked for a better, more satisfying endorsement.

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The author is an award-winning conservation journalist

BILLY ARJAN SINGH
Tiger of Dudhwa
Author: Shaminder Boparai
Publisher: Harper Collins
Pages: 197
Price: Rs 799