‘Snakeman of India’ Whitaker to come out with memoirs

NEW DELHI: Wildlife conservationist Romulus Whitaker will come out with his memoirs in January in which he, among other things, talks about how his love affair with ‘fierce creatures’ began at a tender age when he kept a pet python in a tin trunk under his bed in boarding school.

“Snakes, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll”, the part of the multi-part autobiography co-written with the US-born Indian herpetologist’s wife Janaki Lenin, is published by HarperCollins India.

When his mother married Kamaladevi Chattopadhayaya’s son and moved to Mumbai, Whitaker was transplanted from a conventional childhood in the US to an exciting world of India. From the beginning, he was fascinated by India, humans as well as animals. Sent to a boarding school in Kodai, he kept a pet python in a tin trunk under his bed and realised, from an early age that all he really wanted to do was to work with snakes.

Sent to the US for college, reuniting with his own father, Whitaker soon realised that he preferred snakes to lecture halls and left to work in a Florida snake farm.

A major theme in the book is his transformation from a hunter to protector.