Oct 05, 2002 05:49 AM
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(Updated Apr 22, 2003 05:03 AM)
Jim Corbett's '' Man-Eaters of Kumaon'' is not just a collection of adventure or jungle stories. As Colonel Corbett writes about his adventures in tracking and shooting man-eaters, he vividly portrays the simple life of the good hill-folk of Kumaon and the unique variety of flora and fauna found in the jungles of the Indian Himalaya, which together integrates the book into an all-time classic and makes it extremely readable. At the same time Corbett evokes the irresistible call of the pristine wild in the minds of the readers.
In the epilogue '' Just Tigers'' he perhaps sums up his realization after spending almost his entire life in close association with nature, saying that tigers are better shot with the camera than with the gun.This perhaps makes the reader aware that the forests, flora and fauna are aesthetic elements and need to be preserved and conserved in their wild natural form. Far-sighted as he was, Corbett perhaps first raised the vision of what we have now as ''Project Tiger'', when he observed that if the tiger becomes extinct some day, India will be poorer by one of her finest fauna.
