A Trunk Full of Tales: Seventy Years With The Indian Elephant

A Trunk Full of Tales: Seventy Years With The Indian Elephant

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Book Specification

Item Code: IDI506
Author: Dhriti K.Lahiri Choudhury
Publisher: Permanent Black
Edition: 2006
ISBN: 8178241668
Pages: 237 (B & W Illus: 24, Maps: 4)
Cover: Hardcover
Other Details 8.6" X 5.6

Book Description

From the Jacket

Most children learn about the facts of life from birds and bees. The present author's wisdom in this crucial area came from hearing stories about the private lives of elephants (of which his family owned seventeen). Dr Lahiri-Choudhury was fed elephant's milk as a child, and though he graduated to other liquids by and by, those first draughts infused him with at least one passion that might appropriately be termed elephantine.

Dhriti K. Lahiri-Choudhury grew up in Mymensingh district, now in Bangladesh, inhabiting a near mythic feudal world of household elephants, shikar, Indian classical music, and good food. The partition of his country ended this lifestyle, but not his obsession with elephant.

Over seventy years he trawled the forests of Lower Assam, Barak Valley, West Bengal, Meghalaya. Arunachal Pradesh and Orissa, as well as Uttaranchal, Mudumalai, Bandipur, and Periyar. His experience with elephants includes tracking them in undivided Assam, penetrating remote areas in pursuit of declared mankilling rogues He surveyed the status and distribution of elephants, studied man-elephant conflicts, and analysed the problems of managing elephants in the wild. He journeyed over thousands of miles of hazardous roads and walked through the north-eastern forests of India, learning to read the language of the jungle. His acquaintance with wild elephants, some of them man-killer, was sometimes from as close as a few feet.

For those who have wondered where Jim Corbett's descendants are, here is the answer. This book is in the best tradition of writing about animals: a wildlife memoir peppered with anecdotes, shot through with humour and irony, perfectly combining story-telling and scholarship.

Back of the Book

Dhriti K. Lahiri-Choudhury is an unlikely elephant expert. He has a Ph. D. in English Literature from Leeds University. He was Professor and Head, Department of English, Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta. In his parallel life as elephant specialist, he is a member of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He was a member of the task force outlining Indian's 'Project Elephant', and, later, its coordinator for eastern and north-eastern India. He writes in both English and Bengali. His published work on elephants includes (as editor) the great Indian Elephant Book' (in Bengali) Hati O Banjangaler Katha (Tales of Elephants and Forests); as well as technical manuals, scientific reports, and popular writings.

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations and Maps ix
Preface 1
SECTION ONE: ELEPHANTS AND THEIR WAYS
1 Growing up with Elephants 9
2 Lalji, the Elephant Baba 19
3 Mammoth Love 29
4 Take a Makna by the Tail 32
5 Gabbar Singh and Chomsky in Dalma 36
6 The Saga of Harjit 46
SECTION TWO: ROGUES AND MARAUDERS
7 Rogues and Marauders 53
8 Initiation: Cachar, October 1960 62
9 Bloodletting: Cachar, October 1961 85
10 Dead Giant: Garo Hills, October 1967 98
11 Red Eye: Garo Hills, October 1968 112
12 A Ghostly Visitor: Garo Hills, December 1968 120
13 The Makna of Mahadeo: Garo Hills, December 1969, April 1970 132
14 Identity Crisis: North Bengal, June, July 1975 145
15 Teenage Aggression: North Bengal, July 1988 157
SECTION THREE: MANAGING ELEPHANTS IN THE WILD
16 Introducing Dalma 183
17 Return to Sender: East Medinipur, 1987-1988 187
18 Vet in the Forest: East Medinipur, 1991 198
19 Right of Way: Chinsurah, 1993 203
20 A Collar too Tight: East Medinipur, 1995 213
21 Elephant in a Krall: West Medinipur, 1995 220
22 The Indian Elephant: A Window on the Future 229
Glossary 235

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