Synopses & Reviews
In this engaging autobiography, India's greatest ornithologist Salim Ali recounts his exciting experiences in the outdoors and chronicles his unusual love of birds. Eighty-seven at the time of writing and an internationally renowned figure, he vividly describes expeditions to almost every part
of the subcontinent, including the old Princely States, Burma,Sikkim, Tibet, Bhutan and Afghanistan. As he tells of his life as motorcyclist, timber merchant, scientist, author and decorated celebrity, a picture also emerges of pre-independent India, of Maharajas and colonial
administration.
Synopsis
In this engaging autobiography, India's greatest ornithologist Salim Ali recounts his exciting experiences in the outdoors and chronicles his unusual love of birds. Eighty-seven at the time of writing and an internationally renowned figure, he vividly describes expeditions to almost every part of the subcontinent, including the old Princely States, Burma, Sikkim, Tibet, Bhutan and Afghanistan. As he tells of his life as motorcyclist, timber merchant, scientist, author and decorated celebrity, a picture also emerges of pre-independent India, of Maharajas and colonial administration.
Table of Contents
1. Special Providence
2. Schooldays
3. Burma 1914-17
4. Interlude at Bombay and Marriage
5. Memories of Burma
6. Bombay 1924-9
7. Jobs 1923-9 and Germany 1929-30
8. Hyderabad State Ornithological Survey
9. Interlude in the Nilgiris
10. Dehra Dun and Bahawalpur 1934-9
11. Afghanistan
12. Ornithological Pilgrimage to Kailas Manasarovar 1945
13. Loke Wan Tho
14. Flamingo City
15. Bharatpur
16. Bastar 1949
17. Motorcycling in Europe
18. Hamid Ali
19. Five Other Men
20. Scientific Ornithology and Shikar
21. The Books I Wrote
22. Prizes
23. The Thrills of Birdwatching