It was 1948 when I first 'met' Jim Corbett through his "Man-Eaters of Kumaon" which was added to the curricula at St Xavier's College, Calcutta. It was love at first read and quickly devoured. I settled in Chittagong after my graduation in 1952. From then onwards till Feb 1971 it was one long affair with the verdant hills of the Hill Tracts where I spent months in each year, hunting and traversing some of the most dense forests imaginable and seeing the spectacular landscape which abound in each Hill District.

In latter years I concentrated on Bandarban searching for medicinal plants. By the mid-50's I had penetrated deep into every Mouza of this sub-division and it was here in 1962 in a place called Chema Jiri that I saw at close quarters what was my first and possibly the Chittagong Hill Tracts' last tiger in the wild. Perhaps he already considered himself a refugee in his own domain as was evident by the long sorrowful look I got. But, although those 10-20 seconds were like 10-20 years, I did not feel a moment's unease as I stood there alone, unarmed.

By that time, I had already avidly read and re-read "The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag" the "Temple Tiger and more Man-Eaters of Kumaon", "My India", "Jungle Lore (The Shikari's Bible)" and "Tree-tops" his slim last work which contains the poignant portrayal of the newly wedded Princess Elizabeth who was on her honeymoon trip to Kenya. Staying at the famous Tree-tops Hotel on the night, her father King George VI died. "She went up a Princess and came down a Queen".

Nearly 50 years after his death in Kenya, Jim Corbett is still a household word in Kumaon, and, India has done well to name its grandest tiger conservation project after this great naturalist. He had warned and foretold in his first book that "the tiger is a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage and when he is exterminated, as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies to his support, India (and that included Bangladesh then) will have lost the finest of her fauna."

If I go to visit my son in Kenya next year, I will make it a point to visit the tomb of my "Guru" and pay homage to a largely unsung (except in India) but a most ardent devotee of practical conservation to atone and seek forgiveness. This I must do because I share the same unfortunate nationality as those who had no compunction about not only keeping these magnificent creatures confined in cages (after systematically despoiling their natural habitat), but to poison no less than five of them for a few pieces of nickel.