The Man eating Leopard of Rudraprayag is Col. Corbett's second book. It deals with a single animal that created sheer terror in the Garhwal Himalayas for 8 long years from 1918-1926.It operated on the pilgrim route. Many local residents believed it was a devil disguised in the form of an animal.
Several well known hunters tried to bag this leopard. The British government offered huge rewards to kill the beast. They even sent a special army of Gurkhas after it, in addition to assigning a number of army personnel known for their marksmanship and tracking abilities. They even employed high powered Gin Traps and deadly poison to eliminate the animal, but without success.
When the officials approached Corbett to take care of the problem, he demanded two promises. First, to withdraw all rewards offered for killing the animal. To Corbett, eliminating an established man eater was an obligation, not an opportunity to amass a fortune. Secondly, he asked to recall all the sportsmen and army personnel currently chasing the man eater. It is easy to shoot at each other when there are too many in the bush looking for the same quarry. Both terms were agreed at once.
Corbett was accompanied by his friend and Deputy Commissioner, Sir William ibbotson. They crisscrossed the area, examined and investigated each kill. But the leopard was too smart to use the same route twice, or return to a kill to finish off the meal if it smelled anything unusual. It operated in an area of 500 sq. miles of hill country. After a few weeks attempts, both men gave up the chase for the time being, but returned to the scene after a rest.
Corbett was armed with his favourite rifle, a .275 Rigby received as a gift for killing the Champawat man eater in 1907, from the Governor (of U.P), Sir John Hewett. He tried his luck in several areas in and around Rudraprayag. Still no success. Never in his life, Jim spent so much time and effort to bag a single animal. He realized that the man eating leopards were more cunning and elusive than the man eating tigers. Now, when the day finally came for him to abandon the hunt and return to Naini Tal, Corbett decided to try one more night to locate the leopard.
He estimated that, if his theory about this leopard was right, it would arrive in a village in Golabrai that night and come close to a mango tree on that dark night in May 1926.This was his last chance. Accordingly he sat up there, waiting for the quarry. Somewhere in the middle of the night, the inhabitants of the area heard a loud shot in the dark. The pilgrim route was safe once again.
While skinning the leopard, Corbett found several wounds, some of them were healed, in the leopard's body. It's left hind foot was disabled as a result of an old bullet wound with one toe and a claw missing from it. He also found a pellet of buckshot stuck in the skin by his chest, all made by careless hunters - enough reason for a large cat like a leopard or tiger to abandon its natural prey and go after the easy ones that walked on two legs.
The story of the Rudraprayag leopard is in the public domain, as it was discussed in the House of commons and received much media publicity in India and abroad. It was the last book Jim Corbett wrote while still in India. He mailed the manuscript to Roy Hawkins of the Oxford University Press (Bombay) in November 1946, a year before his departure from India. The book was simultaneously published two years later in 1948, in India,USA and Britain. The first editions carried several photographs - with additional photos in the Indian edition. Later these were replaced by drawings and sketches, beautifully executed by Raymond Sheppard.
While having lunch with the late Eric Risley, a dear friend of Corbett, in Nairobi a few years ago, he mentioned to me that Corbett was a great smoker of cigarettes till the end. They used to sit and talk and enjoyed smoking for hours at a time. Eric, a former District Commissioner from Tanganyika (now Tanzania) had five of the six books by Corbett specially autographed for him. The sixth book, Tree Tops was signed by Maggie, Jim's sister, as Corbett died before its publication
An original edition of the Man eating Leopard of Rudraprayag in very good condition with dust jacket will cost about $125.00 and up. I have seen it selling for as much as $200.00. It is available in paperback edition in India for about Rs.175.00. Recently a very good copy of this book surfaced in a London book store. It was inscribed and autographed by both Jim Corbett (Nyeri) and William Ibbotson (Nairobi), the two men who successfully pursued and put an end to the long career of the deadly man eating leopard of Rudraprayag. The cost of that copy would buy a house in some country. Then again, it was one of a kind, and perhaps only one of two ever signed by both men.
As expected, the man eating Leopard offers high adventure and excitement packed with several tense situations and near escapes. Corbett's writing style is so splendid, that the reader would feel he/she is accompanying him day and night through the hilly regions in the man eater's territory.
There is no other book like it, except Corbett's own works. Some works by the famed hunter of the south, Kenneth Anderson may come a little close to Corbett's narrative skills, but does not offer the same feeling.
A POSTSCRIPT: MAN EATING LEOPARD OF RUDRAPRAYAG -A HORRIBLE Film by BBC
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Early this month (December 2/2005) the BBC (UK) aired a documentary titled THE MAN EATING LEOPARD OF RUDRAPRAYAG. Unfortunately, it has very little, if not nothing to do with the real documents made available by Jim Corbett. This was one of three episodes BBC aired under MAN HUNTERS. In the documentary, unfortunately, the BBC pictured Corbett as a very arrogant, bad tempered young man who assaulted his best friend Sir William Ibbotson and developing a romantic relation with Mrs. Ibbotson. Corbett was 50 years old, bald and sporing his trademark mustache when he went after this leopard. In the film he was about 26 years, foulmouthed and edgy, and pointing his rifle to nearly every one he came across. In real life Ibbotson was short, clean shaven and Corbett was over 6 feet. In the film Corbett was much shorter than Ibbotson who was sporting a mustache. At the end (in the film) Corbett abandons his rifle. In reality he did not. In the film a pundit was killed by the leopard. In reality, he died of natural death many years after the leopard was shot and killed by Corbett.
Corbett's affair with Jean Ibbotson was the main theme in BBC's farce. It was their way to paint a very courageous man like Corbett due to lack of experience in writing, producing and broadcasting a documentary. This low budget film was produced by Martha Holmes who was advised by the Jim Corbett Foundation sufficiently in advance to set the story straight. The BBC's excuse was Hollywood's Warner Brothers had the film rights to Corbett's book, and therefore they didn't want to consult Corbett's own account.
It is sad to see that, an irresponsible bunch from BBC made such a mockery of this incident. A viewer said that instead of tying up a goat to attract the leopard, they should have tied up the producer, director and the writer for the leopard!
Send your complaints to: marthaholmes@bbc.co.uk
