It was on my eighth birthday that my cousin, doing final year in the engineering college presented me with a book, neatly wrapped. Of all die presentation that kept pouring in a steady stream, his presentation of a book, at first, did not make much impression. Yet, I took it with appropriate words.
“Read it,” he had said, “It is adventurous, humane and having all other qualities a growing young mind like yours ought to know! And the style of die language with which it is written is superb.” Whether or not what he told me was true, I could not guess. But I knew that a book has its own value. However, I waited for a few days until my half yearly examinations were over, and then I took it one afternoon to read it.
The title of die book is, “The Man- eaters of Kumoayon,” written by a British citizen called Jim Corbett, who had settled down in India, near Nainital in the early twentieth century. The catchy title that it was about wild animals that preyed on men arrested my attention. I began reading it. The author in his young days (8 years) was a timid boy, scared of the darkness.
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But his elder broodier taught him to be courageous the hard way. One day the elder brother had taken Jim under the pretence of shooting the birds, diverted his attention and ditched him in the jungle itself and went back home.
Poor Jim had spent the whole night in die jungle under constant fear, amidst wild animals, poisonous snakes and species. He sat crouched all night in between two boulders. But nothing bad had happened!
The next morning his elder broodier came and took him home. Since then there was a sea of change in die attitude of Jim! Darkness never scared him! Nor did die wild animals!
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It paved way for him to become die world’s most popular hunter. In every chapter of this book, Jim had written how he had trapped and killed die man-eating beasts: lion, tiger and other wild animals.
Armed with just a muzzle loader, an undaunted Jim had responded to the distress cal from various districts and places and killed die man-eaters!
Not only that. As a fuel inspector in the Indian railways, he had released numerous laborers working under him from the clutches of debt and slavery to the landlords who exploited them and squandered heavy interest from them for the money borrowed by them.
Jim Corbett also gave jungle training to die Indian Army. His name still figures in die Guinness book of world records for having shot down 429 tigers in India! The Corbett Museum in Nainital is a great place to visit to. So, I love this book.