India’s wild side, in photographs

India’s wild side, in photographs

I could tell you that India has ‘immense biodiversity’ and rattle statistics to substantiate — there are 1,00,000 species of fauna and over 15,000 species of flowering plants found in our country. But such theoretical points are drier than the desert and good, perhaps, only for debates. They don’t even begin to give you a sense of what the term ‘biodiversity’ means, especially in the Indian context. Simply looking at the pictures in Journeys Through India’s Last Wild Places will tell you a lot more. Take the landscapes, for instance: rugged mountains devoid of vegetation stand stark against a bright blue sky in the trans-Himalayan region. A little to its south, the Himalayan region is cloudy and colourful. In the desert area, the horizon shifts back and the plains are uninterrupted. Meanwhile, in the Deccan Peninsula, the setting sun gives the low-profile dry grass a bright orange makeover — no wonder the tiger feels at home here. These are just four of the 10 biogeographic regions covered in the book. Each section begins with a description of the flora and fauna of the region, as well as the environmental issues at stake. This is followed by a photo essay. The photos concentrate on the landscape, trees, animals, reptiles, birds and insects of the region. Thankfully the book doesn’t overemphasise the tiger, lion, elephant or any of the other ‘star’ mammal of the jungle. As a result, you get to see a wide variety of species. Surprisingly, only a few photographs are blown up to fill an entire page, giving you a sense that the designers have tried to cram in as many images as possible. As a result, some pages look like reference guides that naturalists would refer to. What makes some of the accounts interesting are author Sunjoy Monga’s personal experiences and insights. At other times, these read like a textbook, and in some instances, adjectives like the ‘kaleidoscopic panoply of colour’ are jarring. Despite these shortcomings Journeys... is worth shelf space for its dose of Indian wildlife in all its diversity.