Romulus Whitaker has too many answers. The question: Any favourite snake species? "There's lots and lots of favourites," he says. Then offers up two: the eastern diamondback rattlesnake and the indigo snake. These and others star prominently in Snakes, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll: My Early Years (HarperCollins), an account of Whitaker's wild and wondrous life in India and the US, co-written with his wife, the writer and filmmaker Janaki Lenin.
Whitaker, 80, often known affectionately as the 'Snakeman of India', is among the country's best-known conservationists. He established the Madras Snake Park, the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and has worked extensively on India's rainforests. In 2018, he received the Padma Shri.
Snakes... is a chatty, delightful, anecdote-driven book of a richly lived life-the first of three planned volumes-and details Whitaker's childhood and adolescence.
Whitaker was born in the US in 1943 and raised by a single mother in New York state, before they relocated to Bombay when she married an Indian, Rama Chattopadhyay, son of Harindranath and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay. "I felt like I'd landed on another planet," he writes. "My new home and country were far more exciting than anything I had experienced in the States in my eight-year existence." The wildlife bug had already taken root in America.
In India, it blossomed further. Whitaker hung out with fishermen in sleepy Juhu, shot sparrows in Worli, kept a pet snake and delighted in the pet shops of Crawford Market. He went to boarding school in Kodaikanal where he embraced the fauna of the Western Ghats.
It was always going to be a life with animals. There was no plan B. "Never," he says. "I'm totally obsessed. Still."
Denne historien er fra February 12, 2024-utgaven av India Today.
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Denne historien er fra February 12, 2024-utgaven av India Today.
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He gave the beat to the world
He would pick up the rhythms of each experience of mobility and weave them into his taals. Thus it was that he reflected joy and laughter in rhythmic cycles...such was the magic of Zakir's fingersText and photographs by Raghu Rai
KERALA TOURISM CAMPAIGN, 1989 - TICKETS TO PARADISE
All it took was a catchy tagline-'God's Own Country'-for the world to discover Kerala's wealth of natural beauty. It remains among the best tourism ad campaigns, earning the state a place among top 10 international destinations
SPIRITUALITY - THE GURUS OF COOL
Among the cult Indian gurus, no one had a bigger hold on western minds than 'Osho' Rajneesh. He's also perhaps the role model for the enterprise-building gurus of today
RETAIL SHOPPING - THE MALL MANIA
Shopping malls, a 1990s innovation in India, changed the way the Indian middle class shops. Their success now lies in being 'shoppertainment' destinations, offering something for everyone
CULINARY RENAISSANCE, 1978 - TANDOORI NIGHTS
ITC's Bukhara and Dum Pukht turned the world to tandoori cuisine and had an enormous impact on the F&B industry. Decades on, they are still a pit-stop for celebrities and heads of state visiting Delhi
INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH - REVENGE OF THE NATIVE
Rushdie lit the way but Indian writing in English has taken a life of its own in the past few decades, with translated Indian fiction most recently having its moment in the sun
INDIAN ART - A BRUSH WITH GOLD DUST
The 1990s economic liberalisation came as oxygen, lighting up the Indian art scene. Today, artworks by established masters routinely go for astronomical amounts
FESTIVAL OF INDIA, 1982 - CULTURE CAPITAL
The Festival of India grew into a symbol of our 'soft power', introducing our art and aesthetics to a global audience while also helping rebrand our domestic products
THE INDIPOP TREND - DISCO GOES DESI
For ages, the film song ruled. Nothing else was audible. Then came Nazia, charioteered by Biddu, and Indian ears went into a pleasant madness. Literally, Disco Deewane. A whole genre was born
SHOLAY 1975 - THE BIRTH OF THE FANDEMIC
India had seen hits before. But Sholay seared into its collective psyche like a badland bullet. The effect was on a scale never seen before- one film creating a new mass folk culture. And a trail of monster blockbusters that still continues
