Behind Jim Corbett's Stories

354 Pages·2015·10.28 MB·English

“Behind Jim Corbett’s Stories: An Analytical Journey to
‘Corbett’s Places’ and Unanswered Questions” attempts
to answer some of the lingering questions of Corbett’s
legacy based on rigorous scholarly study of the existing
evidence and archival documents. The book is written by
a group of authors from different continents, passionate
fans of nature conservation and researchers of Jim Cor-
bett’s legacy. The reader will find scholarly explanations
of some of the mysterious encounters, described in Cor-
bett stories, as well as details of his hunts, including case
studies of the places, people, dates and controversies sur-
rounding some of the Corbett stories. The book is the re-
sult of multiple trips of the authors to Kumaon, the back-
drop of Jim Corbett’s stories.
“Many people have expressed an eagerness to go on the
trail of Jim Corbett. They will be curious and have ques-
tions, doubts and imagination about the legendary hunt-
er-writer-conservationist. This book will answer their
questions and lay to rest their doubts.”
Dr. A.J.T. Johnsingh
Nature Conservation Foundation, Mysore and WWF-India
“‘Behind Jim Corbett’s stories’ is a rich reward for true Cor-
bett aficionados. An invaluable guide to anyone with the
will to make a trip to Corbett country and second only to
Corbett’s own words.”
Keith McCafferty
award-winning author and survival and outdoors skills
editor of Field & Stream magazine, USA
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l
Priyvrat Gadhvi (India)
Preetum Gheerawo (Mauritius)
Manfred Waltl (Germany)
Joseph Jordania (Australia)
Fernando Quevedo de Oliveira (Brazil)
Behind Jim CorBett’s stories:
An Analytical Journey to
‘Corbett’s Places’ and
Unanswered Questions
Guest author: Marc Newton (UK)
Foreword by Peter Byrne (USA)
LOGOS
2016
Editor: Bob Segrave
Cover photos:
(1) Jim Corbett (from Oxford University Press archives)
(2) If you are trekking towards Chuka and Thak, you will be travelling along the mighty Sarda River.
India is on your left side and Nepal is on your right, with Sarda acting as the border. This photo
was taken by Manfred Walts during our 20 km trek to Chuka and Thak in April 2012
Back cover photo:
On the 19th April 2014, the authors of this book decided to commemorate their hero’s death date by
lighting a candle on the overhanging rock in Champa gorge, where Corbett killed his first man-eater
Book cover design: Aleko Jikuridze
© Priyvrat Gadhvi, Preetum Gheerawo, Manfred Waltl, Joseph Jordania,
Fernando Quevedo de Oliveira
All rights reserved
The authors and the publisher permit others to use the ideas and materials from this book, as long
as they are acknowledged.
Disclaimer: Permission to reproduce items where third-party owned material protected by copyright
is included has been sought and cleared where possible. Every reasonable effort has been made by
the authors and the publisher to trace copyright holders, but if any items requiring clearance have
unwittingly been included, the publisher will be pleased to make amends at the earliest possible
opportunity.
Program LOGOS
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ISBN 978-9941-437-92-2
3
Contents
Foreword ...............................................................................................................................................................5
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................................7
Introduction .........................................................................................................................................................8
Part One: PLaCeS .......................................................................................................................14
The Champawat Tigress Amphitheatre ..........................................................................................................15
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
The Chowgarh Tigress’s giant slate ..................................................................................................................25
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Thak tigress killing site ......................................................................................................................................41
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
historic rock where Thak tigress escaped Corbett, Ibbotson, and Tewari ................................................57
By JOSEPh JORDANIA, PRIyvRAT GADhvI
Part twO: PeOPLe ......................................................................................................................62
Kulomani: The Gaunt Friend of Corbett ........................................................................................................63
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Naruli Devi and Shri Ganga Dutt Bhatt: The brave mother and the “occupant of the basket” ...............68
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Premka Devi: The last victim of the Champawat Man-eater .......................................................................73
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Beena: Thak Tigress’s First victim ...................................................................................................................78
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
The Identity of the Thak Man-Eater’s Second victim ...................................................................................81
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
A man who put Corbett on a career of hunting man-eaters ........................................................................83
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
Other Characters Alluded to in the Champawat chapter in Maneaters of Kumaon ................................87
By PRIyvRAT GADhvI
Part three: MYSterY anD reSearCh ...............................................................................89
Mysterious Night Scream from the Deserted Thak village .........................................................................90
By JOSEPh JORDANIA, PREETUM GhEERAWO, PRIyvRAT GADhvI
The Mystery of Champawat Bungalow .........................................................................................................104
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
The Mysterious Nagpur Man-Eater And Other Unknown Man-Eaters ..................................................115
By PRIyvRAT GADhvI
From the National Archives of India: Ibbotson’s unknown letter .............................................................125
By JOSEPh JORDANIA, PRIyvRAT GADhvI
Mystery of “War Fever” that gave India Rudraprayag Man-Eater ............................................................128
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
4
Did Corbett kill a Ladhya man-eater in 1946? .............................................................................................130
By JOSEPh JORDANIA & PRIyvRAT GADhvI
Search for Corbett Cartridges ........................................................................................................................134
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Corbett’s rifles ...................................................................................................................................................139
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Corbett Magic: Rigby Re-Connects with Corbett .......................................................................................144
By MARC NEWTON
Jim Corbett’s films ............................................................................................................................................150
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
“Through Wounds and old age”: ....................................................................................................................159
By MANFRED WALTL
Part FOur: COntrOVerSIeS.................................................................................................185
Killing of the Chowgarh Man-Eater ..............................................................................................................186
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
The rudraprayag goat controversy .................................................................................................................203
By PRIyvRAT GADhvI
The Kanda man-eating tigers .........................................................................................................................207
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Chowgarh Tigress Cub killing Date ..............................................................................................................215
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
The Muktesar Man-Eater killing Date ..........................................................................................................219
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
The Panar Leopard killing date ......................................................................................................................222
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Chuka Man-Eater Killing Date ......................................................................................................................225
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
The bear or the tiger? Norah vivian controversy ........................................................................................234
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
Meeting with Jungle Stories – The holy Grail for Corbett fans .................................................................237
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
Was a tiger subspecies really named after Jim Corbett? .............................................................................241
By JOSEPh JORDANIA
Part FIVe: MaKInG OF the BOOK: KuMaOn 2012 anD 2014 trIP DIarIeS ...........244
Corbett Trip Diary Kumaon, 2012 ................................................................................................................245
By MANFRED WALTL
Corbett Trip Diary Kumaon, 2014 ................................................................................................................287
By MANFRED WALTL
Corbett’s Timeline ............................................................................................................................................312
By PREETUM GhEERAWO
In FOnD reMeMBranCe OF naLIna tIrVenGaDuM GheerawO .........................319
InFOrMatIOn aBOut the authOrS OF thIS BOOK ..................................................320
5
Foreword
In his life time, the India domiciled Jim Corbett, a man of Irish ancestry, lived
as did many a colonial in British India, working hard to make a simple living and,
through the monsoon months of every year, enduring the tropic heat of the Indian
sun, the flies, the mosquitoes, the inevitable fevers and dysentery, and the inscrutable
minds of the colony’s enigmatic, indigenous people. In regard to the latter, he had one
great advantage and that was, being born in India, he was thoroughly fluent in the
language and customs of the great subcontinent and understanding of the simplicity
and superstition that was with them a way of life.
As we know, most of his working life was spent at a place called Mokhamet Ghat,
a ferry crossing on the Ganges River in the state of Bihar and his job was, simply,
overseeing the shipping of goods from a railhead on one side of the river to another,
on the other side. he worked there for many years until, at the turn of the century,
something happened that changed his life forever and, in time, made him a legend in
the land as one of its great naturalists and hunters... an incident that every student of
his life and reader of his books knows under the name Champawat. For at that time
he was asked by the British authorities in Naini Tal if he would undertake the hunting
and shooting of a notorious man-eating tigress, one that had, until then, killed and
devoured two hundred people in far west Nepal and more than two hundred in India.
Without hesitation, asking only that all other hunters be excluded from the field
while he would be hunting the dangerous big cat and that the government reward
money offered for killing the animal be withdrawn, Corbett set out to find the tiger
and, after a short though highly dangerous hunt, was able to bring it to bay and put
it down.
The successful shoot immediately imbued him with a reputation as a skilled shi-
kari (hunter) to where, when another man-eater appeared on the scene in the same
hill country, he was again asked by officialdom to go after it. With his reputation as a
man-eater hunter firmly established, he was asked by the government to go after six
more man-eating tigers and two man-eating leopards, all of which, over the course of
four decades, he managed to put down.
Then, moving into his later years and with his health a little in the balance, he
retired from the field and started writing about his life and his extraordinary hunting
exploits, and in the process gained international fame. But he also brought to the
attention of the public, through his great books, questions that to this day have never
been satisfactorily answered, questions that have defied explanation and created great
curiosity among his readers and now, the advent of this excellent book – to which I
am honoured to be asked to write this brief Foreword.
The writers of this fine work – five authors from five continents – have done
something that is long overdue with those of us who have studied Corbett’s life. They
6
have conscientiously taken the time – time that has actually included energetic field
work at the sites of some of Corbett’s great hunts in Kumaon and Garhwal – to look
deeply into some of the incidents that Corbett discusses in his books, especially the
ones that have given rise to unanswered questions which same, many of us, to this
day, find intriguing.
One of these is the source of, and reason for, a mysterious scream in the night from
a village that was known to be totally deserted. Another is the question of whether
Corbett ever hunted out of the hill country of northwest India-in this case in Nagpur,
in central India. Another is the mystery of the Champawat bungalow, and strange
happenings there. yet another is the question of the deadly post World War 1 “war
fever” and the possibility that it may have been the cause of what turned a harmless,
Indian hill country leopard into one of deadliest man-eaters of all time, the dreaded
man-eater of Rudraprayag.
This fine book, in the opinion of someone who has spent more than fifty years in
the jungles of north India and the Nepal Terai – with five of them as an amateur hunter
and twenty of them as a professional – is required reading for anyone interested in
Carpet Sahib – as he was known to the native – and his extraordinary life as a hunter,
naturalist, author, and above all – great humanitarian.
Peter Byrne, February 2014.
Author of
GONE ARE ThE DAyS,
GENTLEMAN hUNTER
hUNTING IN ThE JUNGLES AND MOUNTAINS OF NEPAL.
7
Acknowledgements
There’s a big number of people the authors would like to thank and acknowledge,
each one of whom individually contributed in a direct or indirect way in the making
of this book.
Firstly, the authors would like to express their gratitude towards Peter Byrne, who
was one of the first Corbett-admirers to visit places mentioned in Corbett’s books and
document the same in the form of a book, which acted as a primer to our trips and
research at these places. Peter shared pictures from his visits to Corbett-related places
in 1975, when he would have seen the places just as Corbett would have a few decades
ago. Thak village, now abandoned, is seen in full life in his pictures.
The authors would like to acknowledge all Corbett-lovers and enthusiasts who
have attempted to go on his trails over the years and decades, including those who
remain unknown to us. The names, some of whom we know and other’s whom we
discussed, include Durga Charan Kala, who wrote the first well-researched biography
of Corbett, James Armstrong, who was also amongst the first visitors to these places,
Jerry Jaleel the head of Jim Corbett Foundation, who has also written a biography of
Corbett, A.J.T Johnsingh and IFS officers he mentions in his articles on Corbett-coun-
try, Joel Lyall, David Blake (formerly known by a different name), Richard Allen, Keith
McAfferty- an acclaimed author himself, Siddharth Anand and his parents, late Omi
and Mrs. Sumi Anand, Pankaj Saran Srivastava, and several others whose spirit of
enquiry on Corbett we share and admire.
Special thanks are due to the descendants of the Corbett-family and Corbett’s
friends, many of whom were contacted and who contributed generously, as did Naresh
Bedi, Sridhar Balan, henry Walck Jr, his Son Brian Walck and his family who allowed
us access to the well preserved skin of the Thak Tigress.
We would also like to thank Kamal Bisth and his team from Wildrift adventures,
our camping and logistics suppliers who accompanied us on our trips provided won-
derful meals, tents and necessary utilities. Kamal also enthusiastically worked with
us at various places on the research itself, and we were witness to a new Corbett
enthusiast shaping up.
A special mention is due for Rushika (14) and Jayalukshmi Gheerawo (12), the
lovable daughters of Kotetcha Kristoff, who accompanied us on our often exhausting
treks through the mountains and jungles, full of energy and fun, who made our trips
livelier through their enthusiasm
The cherished trips and this work would not have been possible without the sup-
port of families and friends – and we express our deepest gratitude to Priyvrat Gadhvi’s
parents, his wife vratika Gadhvi, Grant Matthew, Reis and Nima Flora. Special thanks
to Bob Segrave for his editing skills, and yuri Bakhtadze for his computer support and
help in making a film about our trips to Kumaon.
8
Introduction
The mention of ‘Jim Corbett’ to a nature lover who hasn’t read Corbett’s books
instantly brings to his or her mind that most famous abode of Tigers in present-day
Uttarakhand – the Jim Corbett National Park, named after a mystical and legendary
hunter of folklore who bravely shot man-eating tigers and leopards, yet who was also
a conservationist, one of the earliest voices in defence of the jungle and its denizens.
To the individual who has read Corbett and about Corbett, and who thus forms a part
of the legion of Corbett admirers spanning several decades, the mystery and legend
of the man only deepen!
Jim Corbett (1875-1955), hunter-conservationist – a paradoxical truism which is
not the only oxymoron associated with his name. he was also an Indian Englishman
– who left India when she became independent and yet who, in the evening of his life
wrote movingly of the country he much loved through an evocative work, My India
(1952), a reticent story-teller – who never much fancied his skills as a writer yet cap-
tured the imagination of millions around the world through his books, and towards
the later years of his life, a shy celebrity – whose stories, despite being confined to the
jungles and small villages of a remote region in North India, found resonance with an
audience cutting across countries, continents, ages and generations.
It would be natural to attach a degree of flamboyance and celebrity with perhaps
the most well-known name associated with wildlife in the world – a famous hunter,
conservationist, celebrated author of best-selling books who lends his name to one of
the last remaining natural homes of one of the world’s most charismatic megafauna –
the Royal Bengal Tiger. yet, paradoxically Corbett was the epitome of simplicity and
modesty.
It is perhaps in these paradoxes and curiosities associated with Jim Corbett that
the origin of this book lies. This is not a biography – six have already been written –
Corbett himself would have felt that’s probably enough. This is rather an effort that
emanates from a combination of the hearts of imaginative and curious readers of
Corbett with the minds of analytically inclined & research-oriented professionals. It
is an endeavour to bring to the reader the places, facts & theories associated with the
legacy of Jim Corbett – to document locations, explain unanswered questions, and
dispel errors in relation to Corbett’s stories. We are grateful to all the authors who
wrote about Corbett. The authorship of this book is the foremost symbol of Corbett’s
universal appeal - five authors from five continents, five different professions, differ-
ent native languages and different age groups! Corbett’s legacy is the adhesive that
binds together this diversity, which is emblematic of the larger Corbett universe – the
millions of admirers around the world who have enjoyed Corbett’s stories and have
vicariously experienced his adventures.
IntroduCtIon 9
Never having thought of himself as a hero or his deeds of several years in helping
poor & desperate villagers anything out of the ordinary, Corbett’s writings present a
man very matter-of-fact in his descriptions. In his introductory notes in the classic
‘Man-eaters of Kumaon’ (1944), he tells us of his endeavour to tone down the dramatic
& sensational moments he experienced while in pursuit of man-eaters, yet the factual
drama of his hunts is infectious and overpowering, transporting the reader to the
scene of the action, with every repeated reading seeming like the experience relived!
It is to this imaginary picture that every Corbett lover forms in his mind about
the stage and setting of his hunts that we bring the real places where some of his
most famous encounters with man-eaters took place. We researched and travelled to
places of these hunts, following in Corbett’s footsteps, and confirming with in-depth
analysis the exact locations of spots such as the rock where the Thak tigress met her
end, the ‘amphitheatre’ where the Champawat man-eater was shot, the slate where the
Chowgarh man-eater was killed and other such famous spots from Corbett’s stories.
The book presents researched and documented facts on unresolved questions on
Corbett’s hunts – such as the mysterious case of the Nagpur man-eater and the factual
date of the Chuka man-eater hunt.
Science-based perspectives are also offered on some of the queer experiences Cor-
bett had while hunting some man-eaters, such as the mysterious human scream from
the deserted village of Thak in 1938, or the strange experience he had while spending
a night at a bungalow during the Champawat man-eater hunt in 1907.
The authors spent much time travelling to places and villages of Corbett’s hunts in
the forested areas of Kumaon – an enriching experience that made us re-live some of
the experiences Corbett mentions in his books, and an experience desired by many-
a-Corbett-fan!
True to Corbett’s own strictly cautious and analytical methodology while trailing
man-eaters, the authors maintained strict adherence to detailed analytical examina-
tion of every aspect of every finding, rigorously questioning and debating all emerging
answers to the diverse set of queries we sought to address, and in some cases seeking
advice from the world authorities on the subject. For instance, the rock where the Thak
Tigress met her end was misrepresented by well-meaning but misinformed previous
enquirers who went to identify it – and as a consequence the wrong place entered
common belief as the site of that famous encounter between Corbett and the tigress.
This book presents what we believe is the real site of the encounter, reinforced by data
emerging from minute & detailed examination of Corbett description & presented
with facts and pictures. Constant companions to the authors in their mission in Ku-
maon were Corbett’s books and a compass, to trace as best possible sites of Corbett’s
encounters. A great tribute to Corbett’s eidetic memory was the confirmation, in every
detail, of the exact topography of the jungle places he describes in his books, some of
which were written several decades after the encounter took place. We hope the read-