Donal Anderson - THE LAST WHITE HUNTER: Reminiscences of a colonial shikari

Indus Source Books

PO Box 6194

Malabar Hill PO

Mumbai 400 006

INDIA

Email: info@indussource.com

www.indussource.com

THE LAST WHITE HUNTER:

Reminiscences of a Colonial Shikari

First published in 2018

ISBN: 978-93-85509-12-4

Copyright Joshua Mathew, 2018

Cover design: Sethu Subramaniyan SS

All rights reserved

Printed at Thomson Press (I) Ltd., Delhi

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this book

For
my wife Riya and my sons Mathew & Joseph

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

1. Growing Up in Bangalore

2 .My family

3. Friends

4. Shikar Days

5. The Years In-Between

6. My Haunts Part 1

7. My Haunts Part 2

8. Kenneth Anderson, My Dad

Epilogue: The Last Days

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank

My mother for encouraging my reading habit, and my father for familiarising me with the works of Kenneth Anderson

Naveen Sathyanand for looking after Donald while I wrote the book

Dons sister June and her children in Australia

Dons friends Darryl Ross, Sudhir Christopher, Jimmy Job,
Meru Sal, Noel Peacock, Nader Mirza, Poochi Christopher,
Mark Davidar, Suresh Raj, Udhank Raj, Sunita Dhairyam,
Victor and James DSouza, Gordon Thompson, Maria Vinda and Lincoln for being his support system over the years

Those who gave their time and money to help Don Gauri Lankesh,
Philip Wollen, K.M Srinivas Murthy, Ashok Tendolkar,
Kakarla Jayaraman, Prashant Sethi, Sherry Khan,
Ajit St John, Harsha, Dheeraj, Raghu, Siddharth Reddy,
Mrs. Marie Ross and many more

Dr. Kenneth DCruz, Dons last doctor

Nair, Lord and the boys from the Richmond Road Baptist Church who did their bit to make Dons life comfortable during his last days

~~~

Ruskin Bond, Dr. Ullas Karanth, Jeremy Wade and T.N.A. Perumal for their contributions

Sonavi Desai at Indus Source Books for having faith in the book

Vilma Rajeev, for ironing out the wrinkles in the manuscript

Annu Kurien my first editor

Sethu Subramaniyan SS for designing the book cover

Jenny Mallin author of A Grandmothers Legacy a memoir of five generations who lived through the days of the Raj

Lakshminarayan and Joseph who helped record Dons stories

Theodore Baskaran, Mahesh Rangarajan and
Dr. Divyabanusinh Chavda for guidance on the construct of the book

Hugh & Colleen Gantzer, Romulus Whitaker, Michael Ludgrove and
Keerti Ramachandra for their incredible generosity

S Muthiah historian & journalist and Harry Maclure of Anglos in the Wind for promoting the book long before it was published

Verghese Jacob and Sunita for helping me with my research
in Hyderabad

For going out of their way to help me Roger Binny, G Shaheed, Raza Kazmi, Aloysius P. Fernandez, Aditya Sondhi, James Champion, Andrew Poots, Bird Suresh, Rags Raghavan, Bhanuprakash, Lavanya Kukrety, Akhila Vijaykumar, Michelle Wadhwani, Shinie Antony, Patrick Michael, Sandhya Chandrashekar, Don Caswell, Susan Robertson, Jerry Jaleel, Barney Berlinger, Iain Burr, Rodney Galiffe, Pranay Gupte, Diego Guiaro, Coral Edge and Faye Hinge, Stanley Carvalho, Janice Payne, Len Boesinger, Ryan Lobo, Vinod Kantamneni, Ananda Teertha Pyati, Kerry Edwards, Ludo Wurfbain, PM Sukumar, Oliver Gunaseelan
and many others

And of course Google, who made my effort infinitely easier

Foreword

I WAS BORN IN 1932, TWO YEARS BEFORE DON, AND CAME from a completely different background. He was the son of the famous hunter and author Kenneth Anderson, and lived on Kasturbha Road, near the Cubbon Park police station, within the Bangalore Cantonment, while I grew up in a traditional Indian environment in Bangalore. From our younger days, we were both enamoured by shikarwhile he got to experience it first hand, accompanying his father, I had to be content with just reading books. And that instilled in me a love for the outdoors and wildlife. I couldnt afford a gun but I was bitten by the romance of the jungle and would never miss an opportunity to visit one.

However, as I grew older, I realised that getting a gun wasnt so difficult and for a short period of time I did my fair share of shooting and was also a member of the Mysore state rifle association. There were many cliques in Bangalore at that time, and on a couple of occasions Ive had the privilege of hunting with Don. I was simply amazed at his skill, not just as a crack shot, but also at jungle craft. He had an unnerving eye for understanding signs and patterns in the junglesdeveloped over the years he spent with his father However, unlike Don, I soon realised that while hunting gave me a tremendous adrenalin rush, I was soon filled with remorse and regret. The culmination was my chance meeting with O.C Edwards, a teacher at Bishop Cottons school at Bannerghatta. Those days Bannerghatta was a pucca forest that held plenty of game and I had a gun in one hand and a bird I had shot in the other, when I met himclearly my first impression was not exactly the best! I had heard of Mr. Edwards and his photography but I had never given it much thought till that day. I met him on many more occasions and he instilled in me the belief that photography was a far nobler pastime than hunting. He also taught me scientific names and animal behaviour and its interesting to note that Don was his pupil at Bishop Cottons school and underwent the same training. While we were both naturalists, Don and I chose different pathsI chose the camera while the gun continued to be his favourite weapon. We met each other on a few occasions and I soon realised that to be a good hunter or wildlife photographer, you need to understand the environment that your subject is in, the season, the time of day, and, of course, the behaviour of your subject and what influences it. Even when it comes to the equipment there are a lot of similaritieshaving a steady hand, aiming through the aperture, ensuring that your breath is steady and knowing the exact moment when to squeeze the trigger. Don was a master at all this and my experience with the rifle helped make my transition to the camera that much easier.

At that time, there was no concept called wildlife; creatures were classified into big game or small game and Donald Anderson was the quintessential big game hunter. With his khakhi clothes, slicked back hair and a cigarette, he always reminded me of the white hunters from East Africa whom I had read about. It wasnt a faade, he was often seen in Bangalore with a dead panther on his motorcycle and was admired equally by both men and women.Retrospection will always find faults at any point in time; most people today will castigate the actions of the hunters from the British Raj but its easy to forget that that was the norm and an integral part of the social fabric in those days. Over time our concept and understanding of the creatures of the forest has changed for the better, but it didnt start suddenly one day. People like Kenneth and Donald Anderson didnt just hunt animals when they visited the jungles; they observed animals and were a source of information that people benefitted from. The world has all kinds of people, and Don Anderson is one unique individual who rightfully holds a place in history.