Bagchee

Jim Corbett: The Hunter-Conservationist

Hunter and conservationist. Fearless and rational, as also superstitious and prone to supernatural sounds and sightings. Sometimes cruel trophy collector, yet heartbroken to see the magnificent tiger laid to rest due to a wound or old age and hence, turned a man-eater. Jim Corbett, unlike most other Englishmen, mixed with the local people, spoke their dialects which he had picked up from the servants, and gave much to his workers and the villagers. Author of hunting classics like Man-eaters of Kumaon, The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, among others, Corbett was hailed as a Gora (White) Sadhu by the village people. The book brings out the real Jim Corbett from behind the ace hunter, the man who pioneered the effort to preserve India’s wildlife in the early 1930s, and whose sympathies always rested with the underdogs-the deprived, the unloved, and the repressed.