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 Rarely have I seen a movie twice, excepting for Mahal in my school
days and Khalnayak in the superannuated stage. The provocation being, the vibrancy and
vivacity of Madubala and Madhuri Dixit. I am sure when "Gajagamini" comes out I
shall see it more than once though it will feature in some parts at least the married
version of Madhuri. You must be wondering why this fixation at this age and must be
accusing me of being a cradle snatcher. Though I am not artistically endowed,
appreciatively I am a follower of M.F.Hussain who must be minimum ten years older than I
am at his 75.
Recently I had a chance to get into this rare
but old habit. It was a feature film in which the stars outclass Madhubala - Madhuri duo
in the departments of hisses, heaves and hip wiggling. The two of them (pair in filmi
parlance) while getting into the re-enactment of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden was so
sinuous and more than suggestive I am sure that even Saroj Khan, the Bollywood
choreographer, could not have produced a better gyrating pair. I recalled the good old
dancing pair of Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. This pair could have even walked away with an
Olympic medal for the recently introduced competition item "Synchronized
Swimming". The location was Manjolai in high ranges and the pair was King (and
Queen?) Cobras. Though their stance, stare and the final coupe appear to their enemies as
blood curdling, there is poetry in the whole operation. I have heard, seen and even
experienced "Dog eat dogs" but seeing the "King" almost fifteen feet
long swallowing, foot by foot, a ten foot rattle snake was indeed a new experience.
At the end of the film "King Cobra"
a 53-minute (National Geographic) the credits card bore a long list where comfortably I
saw a name I was familiar with - Romulus Whitaker, the "snake charmer supreme"
as the producer of the film. He has always been a fascinating personality for me in the
recent past with his exploits in the jungle like what Jim Corbett was years back with his
"man-eaters" encounters in Kumaon, Rudraprayag, etc. I was keen to meet Romulus
Whitaker. The Snake Park at Guindy of which he was the Founder Director directed me to the
Crocodile Bank in Mamallapuram. The telephone lines to Mamallapuram perhaps
are still of Pallava vintage days and try as I might numerous times could not get through
to him. I therefore settled for the good old epigraphy for which there was no reply for
nearly fifteen days and as I was shifting him to the sphere of "legends" he
telephoned me one afternoon. The same day a time was fixed and I was on the East Coast
Road to meet him at the crocodile bank that was about 40 km away from where I stay.
It was around 4 in the evening when I reached
the place in front of which lots of cars (tourists) were parked. It was a great relief
when the parking lot assistant and the one in the entrance refrained from fleecing me at
the mention of Rom's name. He had in fact thoughtfully mentioned my coming to the
ticketing people, one of whom led me down a fairly lengthy labrinthian route in the near
ten-acre facility abutting the East Coast. There were numerous shallow ponds on the banks
of which crocodiles were snoozing (could not have been basking as the sky was overcast
with impending rains added to the shade of dense trees all around). Though these ponds had
skirting walls and as extension protective fencing on top of it I was, frankly speaking
not that comfortable seeing teeming reptiles though motionless. I recalled heightening the
fear, as in numerous Hindi movies where the villain invariably slipped through a hidden
trap door his unwary victims to a pool below full of crocodiles with gargantuan appetite
to snap at anything solid. And I am a hulk of near 100 kilos and hardly desired to be made
a meal of by them at distant Mamallapuram.
There was light at the end of the labyrinth -
yes, Rom was at his table in a small hut like structure whose walls were tastefully lined
with othamada pai (mats). Rom was up from his seat, took off his reading glasses and
extended a warm hand to greet me "Mr. Raghavan, I presume", reminding me of
Stanley's "Doctor Livingstone I presume" in dark Africa. He had a striking
resemblance to Ian Botham  and a hairdo that was something like what Yanni
sported in his Coliseum concert. After a welcome tea in a fairly big mug I was at it -
"extracting" details. Active man that he is, having spent most of his time in
greenery with animals, birds and reptiles, it was no wonder he was a picture of health and
you could not put him a day beyond forty although it was about 15 to 16 years off the
mark. He is a New Yorker and after early schooling there, moved to India where his
stepfather Rama Chatopadhyaya, pioneer in colour film processing in Bombay was residing.
He continued schooling in the International school in Kodaikanal and subsequently
graduated in wild life management from Wyoming University. Career wise he has been all
over the world like Papua, Dhaka, Java, etc. He was the founder Director of the snake park
in Guindy which helps the indigent Irula tribes, who looked lost with the ban on snake
skin trading, and took to snake venom extraction which is in great demand in the
pharmaceutical industry under the guidance from Rom. This was between the years 1969 and
85.
Currently he is the Director of Madras
Crocodile Bank, an outfit run by a Trust. They do lots of research in collaboration with
the Rajiv Gandhi molecular biology institute in Hyderabad and also breed crocodiles for
various governments in India and also for client's abroad. It was an amazing revelation
when he informed me that while it is the chromosomal configuration that determines the sex
of off springs in all other living beings it is the temperature, timing and duration
during incubation of the eggs that determines it in the case of crocodiles. In the bank,
they deal with fresh water and salt-water crocodiles, some of which grow easily up to 20
plus feet. All these days like most others I thought Alligators, Crocodiles, Muggars and
Ghariyals are one and the same till enlightenment came from Rom that while all these are
crocodilian, these are different species like you have Homo-sapiens, Gorilla, Chimp, etc.,
in the classification of primates. Alligators are mostly found in the USA and China and
have a rounded snout compared to the angular one in the case of crocodiles.
Whitaker has published more than 100 technical
papers on reptiles, environment, etc. all of them highly acclaimed in many international
forums. Quite some of these have been co-authored with his ex-wife Zai Whitaker (nee
Zahida Futehali, a niece of Salim Ali, world famous ornithologist). He has produced more
than a dozen documentary films on Wildlife, Tribals and the like. The one on King Cobra
won the Emmy award for the year 1998. He is a member of many important committees
connected with wildlife and environment both in India and abroad like Palni conservative
council, Society for the study of amphibians and reptiles, USA. He has won awards and
acclaim like the Rolex award for Enterprise (Switzerland) and the order of the Golden Ark
(Netherlands), etc. His elder son Nikhil helps him in the crocodile bank and the younger
one is still in school in Kodaikanal.
The near one-hour I spent with him has changed
my outlook towards the reptiles. In a land full of lore, legend and veneration for snakes,
it is a pity our reaction on chance encounters with any of these in the field, road or
backyard of the house is an instantaneous amalgam of revulsion, fear and animosity making
us go at once for the stick or the stone. The exposure to the "King Cobra" will
I am sure have made most of us adopt a policy of live and let live to begin with and later
on actually participate in creating or conserving the habitat they are used to. Being
stuck for a crocodilian equivalent I had to reconcile to "see you later,
alligator" when taking leave of him.
T. L. Raghavan
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