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In the Grip of the Jungles
These are shikar-related tales of the shikaris of yore who respected nature’s delicate balance of the wild and hunted with small-bore rifle (which makes shooting more difficult and accuracy a must), giving the tiger and panther a fair chance, and experiences that told of fights to death between the tiger and the elephant, the two masters of the jungle. A heady blend of jungle lore, nature study and uncanny ability to capture all details of the flora and fauna that today we miss sorely in the Himalayan regions, Knowles, like many other Westerners before him, has left behind in his account a big slice of highly readable history and life in the countryside as it existed in parts of India in the last century. The true hallmark of a hunter is when he shoots in season the game that is permitted with a valid authority permit for the forest block in which he looks for his prey, and it must be said to the credit of the author and his companions, that even in those times when they were the masters, they took care to meet the legal requirements and hunted well as hunters and not mere poachers. Knowles’s fascinating account of Hathikund forests, near Dehra Dun, is a classic case of the unwritten yet well-followed law of nature, where the weak learn to respect the strong without much fuss. In his words, "We push our two elephants over the forest-line, where some dying dogs are struggling beside the collapsing boar, and have moved forward about a hundred paces through the thick grass, when in a small open clearing we suddenly come to face with the tiger, hit apparently by Major B’s shot, in a death-struggle with the boar that had escaped. We could now understand why the dogs that had followed him had so promptly returned." Elsewhere, describing a tigress teaching her two cubs the art of stalking and the final disposal of a barking deer, which she had earlier wounded to make the task for the cubs easier, Knowles’s writes, "We mark this inherent instinct showing itself in the cubs before us. It is not cruelty alone that induces this habit, but a deeper purpose underlying the fiendish delight of torturing the victim prior to the feed", referring to the playing around with the victim before its final moments. Or the unbelievable act of a clever panther that lies up on a rock face heavily camouflaged to simulate the appearance of a monkey at dusk time, bagging his prey the monkey as the latter thinks of this appearance to be one of its own kind: "In the flash of a second, with elastic ease the deceptive, huddled-up creature unrolls and sweeps around. There is a terrorised cry from the monkey, followed by sudden, complete silence, then comes the faint, muffled sound of a tussle". There are robust experiences of shooting down of a man-eating tiger in Terai jungles, the catching live of a snake from its waterhole on the banks of a river and of cartridge bags being left behind inadvertently in the Dak Bunglow when needed most. It is all there in compulsive detail in Knowels’s book. All shikaris are not heartless men shooting up the countryside, as many of the present generation would believe, and Knowles is no exception to this truth. Once on a visit to the Pindari Glacier, his thoughts on a rather still night go to Kanchenjunga and the mighty Mount Everest, and he writes, "Eternal patience looms there on thy crest/from which stars fell-O mighty Everest/like a great giant in the calm repose/of earth’s vast contemplation, rapt in those/high astral solitudes-yearning for sound/of earth’s far oceans, and to stillness bound." Each page tells its own story of life in those times when the first motor cars made their first appearance in the country and when terrified villagers ran for shelter on seeing them and calling them "shaitan howah-garry". And then, of course, there is this most fascinating account of the Governor-General’s hot weather retreat Kasauli, near Simla, to which the ladies and children of the shooting party had to be conveyed, "Nine miles from Kalka one goes up a straight wall of mountains, 6,500m high, among the sweet-scented Himalayan pines that give the air a healthy resinous nip. The peach, the apple, and the apricot are in blossom; and the picturesque little houses—many after the fashion of English cottages lying on the north side of the mountains, and facing Simla, are gorgeously decorated with the lemon-yellow Banksia and large white roses, creeping and interlacing in amorous riot". A recent visit to Kasauli has sadly brought home that this era has long been trampled upon by hundreds of visitors rushing up in their motor cars and who just do not respect Mother Nature any longer. This is a gripping account of the wilds of India that existed over a hundred years back and a grim pointer, that we need to religiously protect whatever forest cover and wild life are now left with us. The book is strongly recommended.
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IN
these days, when seeing a real thick jungle in most parts of the country
is becoming a rarity, the jungle tales and actual experiences of George
Hogan Knowles hunting for ‘big game’ in the Himalayan and
sub-Himalayan tracts of India in the early 20th century come as a
welcome gust of fresh alpine air in today’s heavily polluted
environment.