Romulus Whitaker’s biography is an exhilarating narrative of his adventures, making one marvel on the audacity of all of it
What are the three issues {that a} self-respecting herpetologist from the Sixties would get essentially the most enthusiastic about? Well, they’re all within the title of Romulus Whitaker’s biography Snakes, Drugs And Rock ‘n’ Roll. Written with Janaki Lenin, Whitaker’s ebook nails it from the get go along with a pulsating but poignant account of the early years of his life.
Those of us who’ve recognized, admired and been mentored by Whitaker, have heard the lore and listened to him recount his many, typically wild, adventures in his informal and inimitably charming vogue. And but, as you flip via the pages, journey after journey jumps out at you, making you marvel on the audacity of all of it. This is a roller-coaster experience throughout continents and oceans, via professions starting from taxidermist to military lab tech to snake hunter, and from seemingly contradictory positionalities of looking and a love of nature.
Whitaker, now 81, begins together with his earliest years within the US, the place he first acquired his love of fishing and snakes, accumulating garters and milk snakes on his uncle and aunt’s property in upstate New York. While he was already within the grip of an obsession with reptiles, his future could be significantly influenced by his mom’s choice to marry into the illustrious Chattopadhyay household and transfer to India in late 1951 with him and his sisters, Gail and Christine.
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Whitaker writes of arriving in bustling Bombay (now Mumbai) which, regardless of its unfathomable distinction from the world he knew, someway felt “the same”. There was a consolation that led him to ultimately return and spend the remainder of his life right here. Perhaps it was the love of his grandparents, social reformer Kamaladevi (Amma) and poet and actor Harindranath Chattopadhyay, and stepfather Rama, who was beginning a movement processing lab in Mumbai.
Whitaker was despatched to Lawrence School, Lovedale, Tamil Nadu, which he loathed; his time there “planted the seed of aversion to uniforms, military discipline and organised violence”. After a short interlude as a self-styled pest management agent, killing sparrows and rats for annas, and hanging out with Sapera Asmeth, the snake charmer, Whitaker and his sister Gail went to a different boarding college in Kodaikanal. The Kodai days have been higher. Between being launched to John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway, trekking within the hills, occasional encounters with vine snakes and pit vipers and extra looking and fishing, Whitaker spent a number of glad years on the college. There are additionally accounts of his adventures together with his new pet python, which he sneaked into college and saved pleased with a food regimen of rats that he caught for it.
After ending college, Whitaker spent a yr studying taxidermy in Mysuru. From studying to stuff animals to taking care of rescues, together with jackals and jungle cats and a leopard cub, Whitaker writes of a interval the place he was additionally looking for the affections of young ladies. Mostly unsuccessfully at that, he did discover one other love, a 1943 350cc Triumph motorcycle on which he made many journeys throughout south India. It was on certainly one of these journeys that he met Brother Romulus, a European padre with a farm in Gumtapuram in northern Tamil Nadu, who provided him a job.
Snakes, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll: My Early Years By Romulus Whitaker with Janaki Lenin, HarperCollins India, 400 pages, ₹699
The job consisted of staying up at night time to maintain elephants from raiding the ragi fields, looking blackbuck and deer (this earlier than the Indian Wildlife Protection Act was handed in 1972), and accompanying the farm staff to gather illegally logged timber. Towards the top, they baited a leopard that had been taking livestock. When it appeared, Whitaker had the cat in his sights. He missed. Disappointed then to not have bagged a leopard, many years later he could be glad he didn’t. Like a era of hunters, together with Jim Corbett in India, Whitaker’s worldview steadily shifted from killing animals to conserving them. He by no means misplaced his curiosity in how they tasted although. Listening to him give a chat as a teen, I recall that he spoke of every reptile’s ecology, habitat, behaviour ….and style.
In 1961, Whitaker returned to the US to pursue a level in wildlife administration on the University of Wyoming, Laramie. Though non-existent in India on the time, fisheries and wildlife administration had change into a major self-discipline within the US. With his common love of nature and reptiles, this appeared like an apparent selection.
After a short go to to his father and mates in New York, he joined college and struggled with zoology and math, however loved palaeontology. For sociology, he drew on his data of India and extolled the virtues of the Marxist authorities in Kerala, incomes himself the nickname “commie” but in addition a very good grade. He armed himself with a shotgun, a Remington rifle and a handgun. On one event, he managed to shoot himself within the leg together with his pistol, however luckily the bullet handed via his leg with out inflicting harm. He additionally remembers his first encounter with a rattler, a 2ft lengthy Northern Pacific rattlesnake. Each encounter with a brand new species or household of snake solely deepened his fascination for these reptiles.
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Whitaker spent the primary yr looking and fishing and consequently, when the exams rolled round, failed math. Since his father had determined to cease paying for his training (as a result of he refused to review medication), Whitaker dropped out and determined to change into a travelling salesman to make money. One factor led to a different, and he grew to become a service provider marine. Homesick for India, he deliberate to discover a vessel going there and soar ship. Though he had determined to go away for India by catching a ship from Florida, Whitaker had promised himself that he would go to the Miami Serpentarium to fulfill Bill Haast, “the world’s most famous snakeman”. Serendipitously, a position opened up and Whitaker took it. Handling and sustaining a wide range of venomous snakes from internationally, the time with Haast and his crew would train Whitaker the abilities he wanted to begin his profession as a “snakeman” in India. Encounters with moccasins, a big jap diamond again, gator-catching and different herp adventures mark this seminal interval. This all ended abruptly in early 1965 when he was drafted into the US Army.
After a interval of coaching at Fort Gordon Georgia and utilizing his weekend passes to go snake looking together with his mates, Whitaker was assigned as a medical technician in a hospital in El Paso, Texas. Grateful to not should “kill people or be blown up in Vietnam”, Whitaker learnt an entire bunch of lab methods and picked up blood samples together with his crew, humorously christened the “Vampire Squad”. He spent his spare time attempting totally different medicine and on the lookout for snakes within the surrounding desert, one time being hospitalised after a nasty chunk from a prairie rattler. As the conflict in Vietnam heated up, Whitaker signed as much as be a lab technician in Japan. Soon after, he was accomplished together with his military stint and discharged. Catching rattlesnakes (getting bitten once more) and doing different odd jobs to purchase his ship ticket, Whitaker lastly returned to India in 1967.
What a experience. And Whitaker’s not even on the midway level of his superb story. In truth, the half that we’re all accustomed to—his profession as India’s snakeman, king cobra wrangler, founding father of the Madras Snake Park and Madras Crocodile Bank Trust, National Geographic filmmaker, winner of many awards—begins after this. Whitaker’s affect on conservation the final 50 plus years has been profound. Through inspiring a era of herpetologists and beginning tasks on snakes, crocodiles and sea turtles across the nation, Whitaker introduced a lot wanted consideration to the conservation of those fauna. But that comes later—that is simply Volume 1 of the autobiography.
The ebook could be unputdownable anyway however Whitaker spices it up additional with endearing anecdotes, a candid type and a deep honesty about each occasions and expertise. At the top, one is left marvelling on the movie-star persona and the thrilling narrative of his life. And greater than something, ready with bated breath for the remainder of it.
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