The Birdman of India

Nice artice.Ofcourse every educated Indian is aware of Salim Ali,he is a legend.
But not many know but his personal life.

Regards
Nandan

#35 soya, it is not caste or anything, its the angrez method ..this was the norm before automation in angrezistan too.

#32
Interesting observation. We overemploy as a means to reducing unemployment - go to a bank or any organization where you need to get work done, we need to go from counter to counter getting papers stamped or new pieces of paper issued, etc. Why have one person do the job when five can share it? This idea in modern india is partly a tradition carried over from our obsession with castes and partly an import from the old Soviet Union where, again, the state created a lot of useless, bench-warming jobs as a way of keeping people employed. Employment was not about productivity, it was a welfare measure.

Mr. Gill,

It`s refreshing to read an article on this topic.

As school kids we use to read a lot about him and discuss in schools about his work, especailly when he came and confirmed about Jerdon`s Courser bird, thought to be exticnt was spotted in AP in 1986. He took pains to educate the people about conserving the endangered bird. He took and preserved the lone specimen of Jerdon`s Courser in Bombay Natural History Society. The BNHS musuem in Bombay reflects the hard work done by Salim Ali. He was one of the inspring role models in pre-6/12 India.

Re: # 16

Yes, I agree with you Delhiwala: You are known to make very insightful and smart comments! Let us hear it!

You know censoring is done by automati searching for key words that imply profanity, curse words or whatever. But that kind of censoring does not work always. It is done to save time. It can even be stupid. So don`t worry. Have patience and drink your cup of tea.

Sahibi has become ingrained in us. I remember recently I had to take a gora to meet a GM of a large company in Mumbai. We sat and started talking. During the meeting suddenly the GM buzzed for a peon and asked him to pour him a glass of water. What shocked the gora was that the bottle of water was all the time on the table and all the GM had to do was to reach out open the bottle and pour himself some water rather than call someone to do it. Next the GM again buzzed, this time for his assistant, and asked him to dial so-and so, the assistant pisked up the mobile from the GM`s table dialled and when the connection was made he handed the phone for the GM to speak. The gora could not believe what he saw, no wonder, in the west they just do not have flunkeys like we do, there is no system of peons., evrybody does his own work, even closer home, in Iran in schools the Headmaster himself rings the bell at the end or beginning of a class unlike here.

kabuliwala:
Yes, he had a passion for motor cycles. His autobiography also shows that he considered Meinertzhagen a bulley although he himself was not daunted by him. He was kind of idiosyncratic in several ways and respected Salim Ali. I did mention in my article that he was a phony too.
I haven`t read Salim Ali`s autobiography cover to cover but have read pieces of it here and there. Dr. Salim Ali was naturally gifted and was fortunate that his greatness was appreciated all the world over in his lifetime.
Mohammad Gill

Dear Dr. Gill,

thanks for writing about the birdman of India...as a kid I used to think that he was the ugliest man ever and was quite scared of his picture...but much later read his autobiography and discovered that he and I shared a passion for motorcycles...his autbiography has quite a few pics of his motorcycle exploits, one of which I believe was travelling on his motorcycle from India to England...so u see, he beat Che both in terms of distance and for conceiving the idea before...while an Islam observant man, he had no patience or understanding for other religions as evindenced by his thoughts on Buddhist and Hindu practices during his survey of the birds in Nepal and Tibet...I found it odd that after having lived and grown up in India, he did not have the heart to understand the native faiths...regards

Kabuli

Re: # 28
Ajeet having repaired televisions myself when there were actual tubes other than the picture tube it has been my experience that when a tube burns out no amount of banging can bring things back to life. And I suppose this anecdote took place in the 70s before the hey-day of solid state electronics.

HP , a herpetologists studies reptiles. He doesn`t reduce the number of snakes, frogs etc. India has a lot of people doing research on reptiles even though a lot of those reptiles appear to be foreign born.

Delhiwala, Europe has been as contentious a continent as Asia. Its been full of Christians killing each other and the occasional Turkish Muslim all the way upto 1945 and also post 1992. Perhaps the British should thank the Indians because we let them get modern by looting us.

I love historical discussion especially when a thief and a murderer like Meinertzhagen is being defended, as being one of the race that taught us how to live.

Please read desis and not desins, in the last line before you get any other ideas.

This is not a question of slackness or stinginess. It is the culture which taught that if you are educated, working with hands was below your status. Also, HP before you get smug, I said desins and not Indians. One of the four guys was a Pakistani.

The Indian is not only a slacker he is stingy as well.....?

``The replacement cost is the key in your story, not the slackness!``(HP)

HP that sentence has a razer`s edge......:)

``He took them out and went to Radio shack and bought replacements,``

The replacement cost is the key in your story, not the slackness!

Re: # 14

Dr Sahib, I have an anecdote, which illustrates this very thing. This is a true story, one of my friends told me. He and three other desis were sharing an apartment. They were all electronic engineers. They had an old TV in the living room, which worked off and on. Every time it stopped working they would bang on it and it would come back to life for a short time. This went on for a long time, until one of the four left. The guy who moved in his place was not an electronic engineer. He was just an ordinary Joe, an American, good at fixing things.
The first day he saw the TV misbehave, he opened the back. There were some tubes that were obviously burnt out. He took them out and went to Radio shack and bought replacements, The next day the TV was working fine.

Re: # 21
Addendum:
WW2 and the reluctance of Indians to serve under Gora-Officers leading to Indian Commissions(IC) was the turning point in educated middle class youth to relaize their potential. These Short Service Commissioned Officers became the fulcrum for making English realize that it is no Longer a feasibilty to rule India with Old King Commisioned Officers and at that rate would have been revolting.

Re: # 20
Thank You HP, finally someone has the courage to show sense.

Dude, truth is that before 1947, Indians at day-to-day level were intellectually Null. Yes, there were lot of exceptions and you could some rich Indians getting educated in Vilayat and break the barrier, but only to avail the Brown Sahib status under the Gora Master.

I have had numerous discussions with elderly people, even some ICS officers as well as my elders who were tormented by Muslims in 1947. It always leads to the conclusion that Indians were living in Medieval times upto 1940ies under English.

Q: Were English racist?
A: Yes, they were.
Q: Did they help Indians?
A: Yes, they did in bringing Indians upto par with modern life.
Q: What would have happened if English were not there?
A: India would have been another Afghanistan with Hindus, Muslims killing each other, like Tutsus and Rwanadans.

It is hard to accept the truth because it hurts the pride.

Does India have any Herpetologist? That is what is needed most with reptiles, amphibians, and frogs running around with impunity in every town and city. (Both literally and figuratively).

Nasah, don`t be too sensitive. The guy was right. Just accept the truth and take it like a man. Indians are slackers.

Dr. Gill in those days fewer Indians were offended -- if they would have those brits would not have lasted 150 years.....

There was no surprise THEN -- but now? -- come on Dr. Gill those degrading demeaning racist comments were anything but lighthearted .......I am an Anglophile myself -- but no colonialophile -- my regrets are we gave them such a civilized send off with 21 booming gun ceremony -- not booted them out unceremoniously....with 21 booming whacks on their derriers....

Re: # 14
Make no mistake Dr. Gill. Meinertzhagen, was a racist, plagiarist and a murderer and a thief. If he had not been British officer in British India he would have been courtmartialled and hanged.

i visited a ``specialist`` doctor in inidia and i was the first consultation of the day and the window A/C was not on. The doctorsab hit the bell, and the office-lady came in, and he instructed her to turn the A/c on. She picked up the remote-control from the desk and turned it on. i told that drsab that this is serious sahibi. his explanation was that he was imparting the office-girl training, it was her job to ensure that the room is prepared and the A/c was on.

Re: # 8
Chowk Ed: Why was #10 deleted or filtered or whatever you call it these days.
What was objectionable there? If Kamath is allowed to post why not me?

Re: # 14
Thank You Mohammad for saying these words.
I hope that Nasah and other people see that Indians before 1940ies were living is total ignorance and darkness and British Imperialists merely took advantage of the social, cultural darkness, kind of like what Indians in Nagaland or Pakistanis in Balochitstan would do.

nasah and others:
Meinertzhagen’s comments regarding the Indians’ (including Pakistanis) attitude toward doing ordinary things with their own hands are not really derogatory – at least I didn’t read them that way. I believe they are quite true even now.
Having domestic servants is a status symbol in the subcontinent – the more the better. Doing ordinary things, such as ironing one’s own clothes, for example, is considered undignified. This attitude is also somewhat reflected in scientific research that most of us engage in – it is mostly theoretical research and not experimental. In experimental research, you’ve to build gadgets and test them how good they are for the purpose you built them.
When I was doing research for my Ph.D. at Imperial College, I depended a great deal on the workshop staff to build my apparatus for the experiments. It was not because I didn’t want to do my own things; it was mainly because I didn’t have self confidence; I was afraid I might not be able to build it correctly. On the other hand, Brigadier Bagnold, a great engineering scientist, who was 60-65 years old at that time built his apparatus himself for all his experiments that he did during my tenure. Only occasionally or rarely he sought help from the workshop people.
While I was in England during my student days, I started doing several things with my own hands. Initially, I did miss my domestic help that was available to me in Nigeria. Later on, I started cooking my meals, doing dishes, laundry etc. Even now, I cook my breakfast regularly, cook food for lunch and supper occasionally whenever there is occasion for that. I do many other household chores although I hated to paint my house for which I hired a contractor.
Bottom line: I didn’t feel offended by Meinertzhagen’s (racial?) comments which I think he wrote lightheartedly. Dr. Salim Ali also was not offended because he used these entries in his autobiography “The Fall of a Sparrow.”
Mohammad Gill

Re: # 11
Mr Nasah,
No disrespect but most of what British thought of Indians was true. It is only in 194oies that Indians got more assertive and demandingr when Western educated was made available to them freely. Indians realized that England can also be beaten( as shown in Singapore War).

Salim Ali was a good man but was behaving like a Nawab. English writer merely reported it.

On a personal note: Why are you living in West if you dont think of them as better than you?????

Re: # 4


``Actually the place where Hornbill House (the headquarters of the BNHS) is situated has been renamed Dr.Salim Ali Chowk after him. ``

nice break from naming chowks and roads after good-for-nothing politicians.

Dr. Gill -- thanks for a rare feast -- more than Salim Ali -- the views of British bastards regarding educated Indian were hilarious -- the colonial criminals really believed that the sub continentals were pagan rats -- and that they were the civilized ones hence had the right to rule India -- what an astounding frame of mind for entitlement and the craziest excuse for naked Imperialism......:)

great column.....

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thanks to salim-ali i was able to identify a hornbill (chaap of Bombay Natural History Society)..a remarkable and big bird. otherwise i would have know it as ``kokani Garud`` (kokan-costal eagle) as the local folks called it.

while i agree with the indians not good at tent-pitching, the brits learned all the civilized sahibi (gin-n-tonic, afternoontea and such) rituals from indians.

thanks to salim-ali i was able to identify a hornbill (chaap of Bombay Natural History Society)..a remarkable and big bird. otherwise i would have know it as ``kokani Garud`` (kokan-costal eagle) as the local folks called it.

while i agree with the indians not good at tent-pitching, the brits learned all the civilized sahibi (gin-n-tonic, afternoontea and such) rituals from indians.

Re: # 7
You say, `..If I am not mistaken he was a Moplah Musalman.......``. What aquestion. Salim Ali helped save lives of birds - some of the most beautiful creatures in nature. Does it matter if he is a Mapilla Muslim, Khoja , Shia etc.?

Anyway, he belonged to the same Bohras community of Muslims that produced many other great and eminent Indian Muslims.such as ` ...Badruddin Tyabji who was the first Indian to become a Judge in the Bombay High Court , reformer in Bombay Muslim community in education, a president of Indian National Congress, a relentless fighter of corrupt Bombay City Corporation, a pleader for understanding between various communities. He banished wearing Burqua in his family forever ...`......

Thanks for bringing our Salim Ali for us.

I remember meeting him in Sultanpur Range near Delhi as a little kid with my Boy Scout field trip.
We did not think much about Bird watching at that time. If I am not mistaken he was a Moplah Musalman.......

Re: # 5
Hamidm2
Meinhertzhagen amongst other good things was a Nazi sympathiser for some time, was a plaigiariser his magnum opus Birds of Arabia was compiled along with George Bates but he never gave him credit, killed one of his assistants in India in a fit of rage and bribed the police to cover it up as a death due to plague, his second wife , so the official story goes shot herself in the head while engaged in pistol targetna practice with her husband and this is what Colonel T. E. Lawrence writes about him in his book

``Meinertzhagen knew no half measures. He was logical, an idealist of the deepest, and so possessed by his convictions that he was willing to harness evil to the chariot of good. He was a strategist, a geographer, and a silent laughing masterful man; who took as blithe a pleasure in deceiving his enemy (or his friend) by some unscrupulous jest, as in spattering the brains of a cornered mob of Germans one by one with his African knob-kerri. His instincts were abetted by an immensely powerful body and a savage brain....``

Now isn`t that cute? -)

gill sahib,

.... thank you for a very enlightening article ...... we, on chowk, have known all this for a long time but it is nice to have independent corroboration and confirmation of the desi traits :

- practical things like pitching camp is a long and tedious business and indians are`` quite useless at anything of that sort``

- desis who can read, write or code are ``so accustomed to be waited on by an army of servants that they is impotent when they have to do something themselves``

- desi babus who advocated they were capable of governing india, were wrong and ``must first learn to govern themselves”

- indians are quite quite useless at anything`` but writing code ....... ``they cannot skin a bird, nor cook, nor do anything connected with camp life, packing up or chopping wood``

- they are insufferable because they write ``interminable notes about something`` (a lot of evidence is available on chowk )

- `` all Indians are incredibly incompetent at anything they do; if there is a wrong way of doing things they will do it, and they are quite incapable of thinking ahead.”

- bjkumar ``is the personification of the educated Indian and interests me a great deal. He is excellent at his own theoretical subjects, but has no practical ability, and at everyday little problems, is hopelessly inefficient, yet he is quite sure he is right in every case. His views are astounding.`` ......... ``he is very touchy about India and Indians. He resents any trace of criticism and is extremely bitter about South Africans’ treatment of the Indian question.

- desis have `` introduced disease, dishonesty and sedition” all over the world


.......... it is really very sad that the englishman gave up and turned over india to ``be governed by rats” ............... really unfortunate - we could have been living happily like the australian aborigines, the american indians or the bushmen of kalahari ............

I was a member of BNHS for a long time. All of us members were indebted to Dr.Salim Ali for keeping one of the oldest wild life preservation organisations in the world going. Actually the place where Hornbill House (the headquarters of the BNHS) is situated has been renamed Dr.Salim Ali Chowk after him.

BNHS, thanks to Dr.Ali and others have some wonderful collections of specimens of various flora and fauna native to Asia. It was nice to see an article about him, having seen him potter around BNHS when he was alive.

Incidentally if anybody has read Anita Desai`s ``A village by the sea`` , it is my opinion that the ornithologist in that book was very definitely based on Dr. Salim Ali.

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Salim Ali was a truly remarkable man. As a kid, I remember watching with rapt attention documentaries in which he featured. Even at 80+ years of age, his energy and fascination for birds would be like that of a kid for a new toy.

Few nuggets about Dr. Ali. Although he is remembered as an ornithologist, he also identified a new mammal species which is now named after him, Latidens salimali or Salim Ali`s fruit bat. It is one of the most endangered mammals of India. He spent much of his time birdwatching in the marshlands of Sultanpur Jheel near Delhi, which later became a national park, one of India`s smallest thanks to his effort and a popular picnic spot for Delhiites.

At the time of partition in 1947, he seriously contemplated emigrating to Pak, luckily for himself and India, he decided to stay back.