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The Leopard’s Call: An
Anglo-Indian Love Story
The begining sketches the evolution of their love which grew with the years. "It took nearly a year before the Dear Reggie letters changed to my darling Reggie. It was nearly two years since I had seen her". The patient lovers bore agony of long separation before they got married. For economic difficulties, they "decided to leave India for England and a better life." Since they could not afford to go abroad, they had to stay back out of necessity. For the lack of funds, they accepted to work in a farming school at Falakata. Norma would be nurse and Reginald, an English teacher. They journey together, with their two children and Norma’s sister, to the Frontier grasslands of West Bengal down from Bhutan and Himalaya. Reginald gazes at the grand and imposing Himalayan mountains wonderingly: "My life and that of my family seemed so small and insignificant against this feature of our mighty earth". He feels a tingle of excitement surrounded by rivers. The long and arduous journey finally takes them to their destination. For the city-bred pair, the first night at Falakata turns out to be unnerving and uneasy: "Outside a pair of Jackals, close to our house, joined in a course of yelps and cries sending shivers up my spine." The second chapter chronicles the founding of Raymond Memorial School. A tract of jungle land is turned into a self-sufficient school only through joint efforts of the principal Champion, his staff and student. Reginald Shires comes across pioneer Champion, an emblem of devotion and grit. He salutes to the courage and humanity of Anglo-Indians who have served in the needy areas of India. The book furnishes the readers with inspiring portraits of tenacious and valiant Anglo-Indians highlighting their spirit of adventure. To the young couple, their stay at Falakata is a great education. They learn ploughing, farming and how to use foot powered press to produce work in English, Hindi, Oriya, Bengali and Nepali. They enjoy teaching, ministering to the sick and cycling to the vegetable market. It is a place altogether lacking in amenities. Pregnant women deliver at home without trained assistance. Norma takes painful journeys to reach hospitals, miles away from Falakata, to have safe deliveries. Living beyond the edge of civilisation is an adventure. The threat of cobras, leopards, boars and tigers loom large over the minds of the inhabitants. The vignette of cobra in classroom is blood curdling. The horrifying vignettes of the predator leopard preying upon villager’s cattle are scattered throughout the book. The leopard, being a carnivore, becomes the target of human fury and is shot at. The book throws light on discomfort and harshness of working at tea gardens, "the man eating tigers’ territory", scattered up along the foothills of the Himalayas. The writer shudders at the thought of painstaking labour and risk undergone by women tea workers to brew up a morning cup of tea. "Daily they have to go to work—unarmed—into the tea bushes even though they know that a killer is watching their moves and could strike at anytime." The sad history and pitiable state of Bengali refugees, victims of bloody, fierce and ruthless partition, moves the writer. He condemns partition as "one of history’s bloodiest periods". He also laments painful and humiliating effects of Chinese invasion on innocent people of Falakata. The sketches of important historical events invest the book with the value of history. The book incorporates autobiography, biographical portraits, travel writing, history and a vivid portrayal of frontier life in rural India. The real-life adventure of the author and his family living in the jungles keep one’s attention tingly alive throughout the book. The author’s lucid and genuine style makes one feel spine-chilling frontier life. His good humour and romantic sensibility makes the book interesting and hilarious. The black and white photographs make the narrative explicit.
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THE Leopard’s Call
is a comprehensive survey of a small town, Falakata, on the jungle
grassland of West Bengal, with particular emphasis on the missionary
Raymond Memorial School. Besides, it serves as a gripping love story of
the Anglo-Indians, Reginald Shires and his wife Norma.