The Fall of a Sparrow

by Sálim Ali

This is the autobiography of a celebrated ornithologist, the late Salim Ali. Looking back at the age of eighty-seven, the author narrates a story which is packed with adventure in the outdoors. He traces his earliest fascination for birds to the time that he first shot a Yellowthroated Sparrow and had it identified at the office of the Bombay Natural History Society, several years before World War l.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Birds, Nature, Wildlife, Autobiography, India

Paperback

First published February 6, 1986

About the author

Sálim Moizuddin Abdul Ali (12 November 1896 – 20 June 1987) was an Indian ornithologist and naturalist. Sometimes referred to as the "birdman of India", Salim Ali was among the first Indians to conduct systematic bird surveys across India and wrote several bird books that popularised ornithology in India. He became a key figure behind the Bombay Natural History Society after 1947 and used his personal influence to garner government support for the organisation, create the Bharatpur bird sanctuary (Keoladeo National Park) and prevent the destruction of what is now the Silent Valley National Park. Along with Sidney Dillon Ripley he wrote the landmark ten volume Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan, a second edition of which was completed after his death. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1958 and the Padma Vibhushan in 1976, India's third and second highest civilian honours respectively. Several species of birds, a couple of bird sanctuaries and institutions have been named after him.

Reviews

[Poonam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had read this before - but couldn't recall much except that for the purposes of study birds were hunted, stuffed and mounted by ornithologists. On the second reading as adult, I now know the reason why. Due to work as well as tedious writing - book was a slow read. Moreover, there aren't many riveting highlights and those that are somehow lost in drab, matter-of-fact way of telling. Humour appears briefly on and off - not enough to keep it engaging. Yet book is not devoid of content.

You learn a great deal of history of ornithology in India, Indian rulers-cum-'hunters' of yesteryears, personal interactions with British bird-men/officers who were chief bird-watchers, how bird studies were conducted, history of his association with Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) - and above all passion of a man to know his birds so much that he traveled to Kutch, Hyderabad, Bastar, Kailash, Burma, Afghanistan and later Europe for pure pleasure of knowing birds. Some of best of his work has been conducted at his own expense, initiative even when he was jobless. Not a passing fad as people of our generation treat it. Most of incidents recorded in his book are clearly associated with the name of the bird that led him to it.

Some enviable things he did was bike on a Harley around the Europe, watched Derby in England on charabanc, laid the foundation for a fellowship for first ornithology course in the country, was friends with Sarojini Naidu and group and lastly his road trips to Mansarovar, Afghanistan and Bastar - none of which would be conceivable in a similar manner today.

My favorite passage in the book is about the behaviour of polygamous Baya weaver bird. This golden-brown, weaver bird, builds a nest which is inspected by a bevy of females while it is work-in-progress. When a female likes it, she takes over the nest and allows advances from the male who finishes the build of the nest meanwhile. This is how a family is started - onus of family is now on her. Male bird moves on to building other nest, and the process continues. If a nest is not liked by any female, it is abandoned mid-way and efforts are applied to build a new one that can be liked by a female weaver bird.

Another of memorable passage is diary excerpt of his companion ornithologist Meinertzhagen (later his very close friend) on a tour of Afghanistan about himself - I am very disappointed in Salim. He is quite useless at anything abut collecting. He can not skin a bird or cook, nor do anything connected with a camp life, .....He tells me he has never had to fend for himself in a camp and always had masses of servants before. He is inefficient and can not bear being told how to do and must do everything in his own way, which is often wrong...

This book is purely read for information, for pleasure there are others. A better, well-written profile on Salim Ali can be read here in this Open magazine article written by his grandson Rauf Ali - http://www.openthemagazine.com/articl...

[Deepta Sen · Rating 4 out of 5]

সময়কাল ২০১০। রসায়ন, পদার্থবিজ্ঞান আর উচ্চতর গণিতের খপ্পরে পড়ে আমার মতো গড়পড়তা ছাত্রের ফেলের বোঝা বাড়ছিল। তবে একটা বিষয়ে আটকাতাম না সে হলে জীববিজ্ঞান। জীববিজ্ঞানের প্রথম অধ্যায় ছিল জীববিজ্ঞানের পরিচিত; বেশ কিছু জীববিজ্ঞানীর পরিচিতিতে ভরপুর। সেখানেই প্রথম সেলিম আলির (বইয়ে খুব সম্ভবত ছিল সালিম আলী) সাথে সাক্ষাৎ। সময়ের আবর্তে ভুল গিয়েছিলেম ভারতীয় এই পক্ষীবিদের কথা। বুকস অফ বেঙ্গলের এক বিজ্ঞাপন মারফত আবার স্মরণে আসা।
সেলিম আলির জন্ম ১৮৯৬ সালে ব্রিটিশ ইন্ডিয়ায়৷ সেই সময় ভারতে জ্ঞান-বিজ্ঞানের শিখা ছিল নিভু নিভু। সেই সময় উপমহাদেশ থেকে এমন খ্যাতনামা অর্নিথোলজিস্ট উঠে আসা মনে দাগ কাটায় স্বাভাবিক। ৮৭ বছর বয়সে সেলিম তাঁর জীবনালেখ্য লিখেছেন "Fall of a Sparrow" নামে। কবি সুভাষ মুখোপাধ্যায় এর তর্জমায় "চড়াই উতরাই" নামে বঙ্গানুবাদ প্রকাশিত হয় ভারতীয় ন্যাশনাল বুক ট্রাস্টের ব্যানারে।
অল্প বয়সেই বাবা-মা মারা যাওয়ায় সেলিম আলি ও তাঁর চার ভাই ও চার বোন বেড়ে উঠেছেন দূর সম্পর্কের মাতুল আমিরুদ্দিন তৈয়বজি ও তাঁর স্ত্রী হামিদা বেগমের স্নেহে। তখন ছিল অবাধে পাখি শিকারের কাল। শিশুসুলভ এমন শিকারে ধরা পড়া এক ভিন্ন প্রজাতির চড়ুই মারফত মামার পরামর্শে নমুনাটি নিয়ে বোম্বে ন্যাচরাল হিস্ট্রি সোসাইটিতে যাওয়া দিয়ে পক্ষীবিদ্যায় আগ্রহ জন্মে সেলিম আলির। সোসাইটির তৎকালীন কিউরেটর নরম্যান কিনিয়ার ও সচিব ডব্লিউ এস মিলফোর্ডের হাতেই তাঁর পক্ষীতত্ত্বের প্রথম পাঠ । ম্যাট্রিকুলেশন পাসের পর ভর্তি হয়েছিলেন সেন্ট জেভিয়ার্সে। বীজগণিতের যন্ত্রণায় সাময়িক পড়াশোনা ইস্তফা দিয়ে ১৯১৪ নাগাদ ব্যবসায়ের উদ্দেশ্যে পাড়ি জমান তাভোই(বার্মা)। ১৯১৭ নাগাদ আবার ভারতে এসে বিএসসি ও বিয়ে দুটিই সাঙ্গ করেন। সেসময় ভারতে পক্ষীতত্ত্ব নিয়ে পড়ার সুযোগ ছিল না। ১৯২৮ সালে তাই জার্মানিতে গিয়ে এরতিন স্ট্রেসেমানের অধীনে পাখি সংক্রান্ত ক্ষেত্রসমীক্ষার ওপর পড়তে যান। পরবর্তীতে ক্ষেত্রসমীক্ষায় হয়ে উঠেছিল তাঁর প্রধান বৃত্তি। হায়দ্রাবাদ, ত্রিবাঙ্কুর, দেরাদুন ও বাহাওয়ালপুর, আফগানিস্তান, তিব্বত, কচ্ছ, বাস্তার ও কাঙ্ক অঞ্চল সমূহে করা পক্ষী সমীক্ষার স্মৃতিচারণ এই বইয়ের প্রধান অংশ। সেলিম ছিলেন মোটরসাইকেলেরও ভক্ত। ৬৮ বছর পর্যন্ত চালিয়েছেন সানবিম, হার্লে ডেভিডসন, স্কট, ডগলাস, নিউ হাডসন সহ আরো অনেক মোটরসাইকেল। ১৯৫০ সালে সুইডেনের উপসালায় অর্নিথোলজিক্যাল কংগ্রেসে যোগ দিতে যান তাঁর প্রিয় সানবিম নিয়ে। সেটা নিয়ে সমগ্র ইউরোপ চষে বেড়ান। সলিম আলি আরো লিখেছেন তাঁর বইয়ের কথা, প্রাপ্ত বিভিন্ন পুরস্কারের কথা, তাঁর সাথে কাজ করা বেশ কিছু মানুষের কথা, ১৯৩৯ সালে তাঁর পত্নীবিয়োগের অনেক বছর পরে জেগে ওঠা অপুষ্পিত ভালো লাগার কথা, ধর্ম ও দর্শন, অন্যপ্রাণীকুলের সাথে মানুষের পার্থক্য নিয়ে তাঁর একান্ত ব্যক্তিগত মত।
ভারতীয় দ্বিতীয় সর্বোচ্চ বেসামরিক সম্মাননা "পদ্মভূষণ" প্রাপ্ত সেলিম আলির লেখাটা পড়তে বেশ সময় লেগেছে। এর অনুবাদটা সাবেকি বাংলায়। একটু ভারিক্কি। অনেকের সমস্যা হতে পারে৷ তবে শেষদিকে পড়ার গতি বেড়েছে। বিশেষত সমীক্ষাগুলো রোমাঞ্চপ্রেমীদের জন্য হটকেক। ছাপা-বাঁধাই হয়তো আরো একটু উন্নত করা যেতো, তবে দাম বিবেচনায় আনলে আর খেদ থাকার কথা না। প্রকৃতিপ্রেমী ও আত্মজীবনী পড়তে অভ্যস্তদের জন্যই সেলিম আলি-সুভাষ মুখোপাধ্যায়ের এই যুগলবন্দী।

[Priya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full review on Tabula Rasa.

Even as I write this review, I am reminded of a quote I keep quoting from The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, about how writers can be wholly different from their books. This is not exactly the same, but even so, it is a case of discovering what your childhood hero was really like, stacking achievements alongside failings, and loving him for all of them. A crazy, beautiful read - is how I would sum it up. The Fall of a Sparrow has been on my wishlist for a long while and it was entirely worth my time.

[Preeti · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was actually nauseated reading about all that shooting and roasting of sparrows, bar-headed geese and other assorted wildlife!

[Prabhat sharma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fall of a Sparrow- Autobiography of Salim Ali is interesting because a young boy has shot a yellow throat sparrow and has come with his elders to Bombay Natural History Society ( In short BNHS). Here he meets W S Millard Secretary who identifies the bird by showing him a stuffed bird model, provides him with books on ornithology, thus encourages him to study further. He is also introduced to Norman Boyd Kinnear, First Paid Secretary of BNHS who role will come later in his life as an ornithologist when he is sent for training in Germany etc. Among his difficulties in education is that he suffers from headache- the reason being unclean air of Bombay and is sent to Sind for change in climate.Thus there is break in education. Later, he is sent to Tavoy Burma where he looks after Tungsten Work and sees the green forests and bird of Burma. On return from Burma, he lives in a house near Bombay Port and finds a Baya weaver has a nest. He studies her and makes notes and publishes them. He joined BNHS but look leave and went to Germany for training in ornithology. After this he studies the birds in various parts of India. His studies include Siberian cranes and other birds of India. With so many difficulties in life, he has stood steadfast to his mission of life and ultimately achieved success. It is a must read for all.

[Amrendra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful introduction to the world of Salim Ali, the book is a biography of the Birdman of India. It moves chronologically capturing his childhood exploits in the hills and woods of erstwhile Bombay, his youthful business days in Burma (1914-17), his marriage to Tehmima, his exploits at Hyderabad, Dehradun, Bahawalpur, Afghanistan, Kailas Mansarovar, Bharatpur, Bastar, etc. It also narrates his friendships and acquaintances with prominent Britishers and foreigners of those days in the course of his work.
Salim Ali's journey to Uppsala, Sweden for attending Ornithological Congress of 1950 on a motorcycle is well captured in the chapter 'Motorcycling in Europe'. Equally beautifully described is the portion where he narrates a birding season spent at Kailas Mansarovar, meeting yogis and undertaking risk and adventure. All through the book you will find mention of different birds and their illustrations in b&w.
The last chapter is 'The Thrills of BirdWatching' in which the author describes the joy of the pursuit and how it gave him an escape - up in the mountains or deep in the jungles - away from the noisy rough and tumble of dubious civilization. He describes it as a form of joyful escapism, but one that hardly needs justification.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The advantage of doing one's praising for oneself is that one can lay it on so thick, and exactly in the right places'—so observed Samuel Butler. In writing my autobiography I have tried to keep this wise dictum constantly in view to avoid the temptation of laying it on too thick even in the right places, but with what success I cannot tell.’

Here is a man who spent almost his whole life devoted to the discovery and study of birds. Not only did he review and document birds, he was vociferous about the conservation of birds and their habitats too. He is said to have played a crucial role in the setting up of the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary in Rajasthan, and in stopping the destruction of the Silent Valley National Park in Kerala. He is also believed to have been persuasive with the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in reviving the fund-strapped BNHS with monetary support.

His sojourn into the natural world commenced with a a toy air gun – with which he shot sparrows. On one such occasion, a bird that he killed looked a tad unique. It had a yellow patch on the throat. When Ali asked about this interesting creature at the Bombay Natural History Society, WS Millard, the secretary not only identified it as the Yellow-Throated Sparrow but also introduced a young Ali to the world of birds and ornithology. Millard showed him the stuffed specimens of the BNHS museum and lent him a copy of Edward Hamilton Aitkien’s The Common Birds of Bombay. The rest was history.

He is Salim Ali.

‘Living three-quarters of a century with no thought of writing one's memoirs and then suddenly deciding to do so is a bad business, I realize. With practically no archival material by way of preserved correspondence, diaries, etc., and only tricky memory to fall back on, the task is unsatisfactory…’ – he writes. Octogenarian he might have been at the time he penned this book, he was endowed with a remarkable memory for even the most minor of details involving his early life which he vividly recollects and retells with wit and wisdom. He further obderves humbly: ‘The writing of this narrative, under duress as it were, began eight years ago without any proper planning or chronological sequence—more or less in the nature of random recollections and reminiscences jotted down lackadaisically in bits and pieces, as the spirit moved. But for the kindly though merciless nagging of well-meaning friends and relations it would have floundered in the mire of procrastination.’
That escapade and the outdoors was to be part of his professional career was in some way inevitable. Ali, like most schoolboys brought up on a literary diet of Jim Corbett and the like, started off with the prized aspiration of becoming a celebrated big game hunter and valiant explorer ("a respectable appellation in those days"), an aspiration fueled by a range of uncles he accompanied as guests of sporting rulers of princely states. However, destiny and situation were to guarantee that the course at last taken, daring though it was, led via a three-year stint as a partner in a wolfram mine in Burma till the business collapsed.

That wretched undertaking proved a blessing in disguise since Ali was forced to retrace his steps to Bombay where he finished a B. Sc course in Zoology and started his permanent love affair with birds and their habits, or as Ali in his inimitable style puts it, "fanning my interest till it grew to a lasting and radiant flame."

The urge to include ornithological allegory in discussing Ali's book is too tempting to resist. But it won Id be hardly misplaced to equate The Fall of a Sparrow with the soaring, effortless flight of an eagle.

Ali is a natural raconteur and his witty and lucid style skims across every page as if powered by wings, circling and dipping over tasty morsels before continuing on its aerial journey into a rarified world that few have been privileged to inhabit.

Thus scholarly interludes in Berlin and elsewhere are briefly underpinned before Ali, and the reader, get immersed in fascinating field trips to Afghanistan and Tibet and some of the most interesting parts of India and abroad, including an adventurous motorcycle tour (motorcycles, as Ali admits, have been his second passion) of Europe starting with his spectacular arrival at an Ornithology Congress in Sweden minutes before it started, having ridden out all the way from India.

The author manages to keep the reader's interest unremitting to the end. In fine, Ali lays out what he terms his Articles of Faith in the epilogue in the form of fantasy inquiries and his rejoinders to them from issues of religion, to man's alienation from the rest of nature, the occult and man's providence.

While most of his books are “bird books” scrupulously detailing birds for bird watchers, this is the book where he tells us his story. As you may have precisely guessed, the title borrows from the turning point in his life that sucked him into the beautiful world of birds.

The intensity of his tireless work and everlasting ardor that comes through in this autobiography is matched only by the absolute buoyancy of his luminous sense of hilarity.

[Sajith Kumar · Rating 3 out of 5]

A definitive autobiography of the greatest ornithologist India had ever produced. Salim Ali rose to great renown by sheer dint of hard work and perseverance against great odds. The book begins from his childhood, how his interest in birds germinated and how he kept the spirit going for many decades to become one of the world’s leading men of his chosen field. The book, written in simple and elegant prose is designed to arouse the interest in young readers to dedicate themselves to an ideal which they deem fit as their life’s ambition. Salim Ali’s career is a great exemplar of how determined men can make a trail where no path existed before. Those who wonder at the relevance of the title find their curiosity satisfied on the front page itself in a quote from Hamlet, which runs ‘there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow’. Salim Ali is the author of many world-renowned books on ornithology. The author also tells the story of how the books came into being.

Salim Ali was born in a well to do family with lots of family members as company. An inclination to birds was apparent in the early stages, though as the author himself confesses, it was in the form of the menu on many occasions. Hunting was his pastime in the early periods and a lot of birds and wild game fell before his guns. However, we must take into proper account the era in which hunting was a socially acceptable hobby and a man’s coming of age was often reckoned on the number of beasts he’d felled. Ali’s intention to pursue a bachelor’s degree in zoology was foiled by his strong aversion to mathematics, which also formed a part of the curriculum. He had to skip the course and move to Burma in a bid to work as partner to his brother in his tin and tungsten mining business there. Burma provided ample grounds for developing his ornithological skills. He communicated frequently with experts of Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and other leading luminaries. We know that technologies for instant communication and the World Wide Web were not extant in those times, but the moral we must assimilate from Ali’s example is that nothing would hinder the efforts of a determined person. Technology has only the role of a facilitator.

The book contains excellent descriptions of field trips the author performed as part of bird surveys in the state of Hyderabad. These journeys were most often made with the basic minimum infrastructure available whether in the form of transportation or boarding facilities. He also made a survey in Travancore-Cochin as the central and southern parts of Kerala were known at that time. Even though he reminisces about Kerala as a wonderful abode for many species of birds and plants, no noteworthy incident is recounted. The author puts forward a remarkable observation however, that the birds and fish fauna in Kerala are striking in similarity to that of Eastern Himalayas and Malaya. He argues about an extension of Satpura mountain range which provided contiguity by land and water as the cause of this phenomenon. However, this assertion seems a bit farfetched and requires the attention of geologists and expert zoologists to crack the secret of their coincidence.

Salim Ali gives a detailed description of his field trip to Tibet to survey the birds there. The journey took place around Kailas Mountain and Manasarovar Lake, which assumed huge popularity later as a pilgrim route. Ali half-humouredly calls the trip an ornithological pilgrimage. He gives verbatim reproductions of his field diary and the readers get to know that the author greatly enjoyed the trip even in spite of the physical hardships endured on the way. We also discern the gradual, but subtle shift of attitudes of the people in the region at the outset of large scale pilgrimage, which lets loose a torment of commercial interests to wipe off the isolated manifestations of charity and compassion. Being a man of science, Ali finds many of the religious practices of the Tibetans disgraceful, but we may find many of his remarks uncharitable. Also the verbatim accounts of his diary lack any substance of interest, as the author himself confesses later that his writing style is ‘as dry as dust’.

The book is graced with a profound sense of humor displayed by the great ornithologist. This thread of subtle humor runs through the entire narrative and livens up the reading experience. One such incident is so hilarious that I am prompted to repeat it here. The author’s wife Tehmina though related to him by birth, was in a higher social and financial level than him. Many of her relatives expressed reservations about the match due to these differences. So, Ali was ecstatic when a situation presented itself to impress the relations favorably. This fiancée’s elder brother and his entire family were down with influenza. Salim Ali sent a telegraph which left him as “SHALL I COME AND HELP?”, but which was received as “SMALL INCOME, SEND HELP”. Imagine the consternation that would have caused due to this error in telegraphy.

Ali confesses that he was not a non-violent bird lover as so many people have made him out to be, and admits that exclaiming the truth sometimes embraced him. In the true spirit of scientific enquiry, he had to kill many birds to collect details of their diet, behaviour and nesting habits. With compunction in his heart he pulled the gun’s trigger thousands of times, but asserts that each dead bird had not died in vain and it enhanced scientific knowledge in some way. The author narrates one incident in which he came up with a nest full of unhatched eggs. He was cool enough to scramble one egg to make a delightful snack. So, if anyone harbours any idea of the ornithologist warmly caressing an unknown bird in order to study it, nothing is further from the truth.

What one would notice most from the narrative is the candour and lucidity with which he had told the story. Ali’s inimitable sense of humor, often applied to himself, enables him to make a clean breast of even embarrassing situations in order that the readers get a true picture of the incident being described. Even when he sets aside a full chapter to enlist the recognitions and awards won by him, we do not suspect even a trace of pomposity and accept the author’s argument that this list was put there as a tribute, or rather a fitting reminder to those people who mocked him on his choice of career at a time when such unconventional fields attracted rebuke from one’s own friends and well wishers. This was particularly so for Salim Ali in the 1920s when his partnership mining business in Burma had floundered and he had to spend a little time in Bombay as a married jobless guy. The candidness makes the book such a delight to read.

The author’s comparison of rates of transportation, wages and provisions appear naive and the readers are forced to observe that the old ‘bird watcher’ is utterly ignorant of the concepts of monetary inflation and the changes in the value of the currency over a period of time. We must suppress our smile when Salim Ali declares that so many products and services could be purchased at such a minuscule amount of money, typically five or six decades before.

The book is highly recommended

[Jaya Kumar K · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘The Fall of a Sparrow’ narrates the real life story of Salim Ali, father of Indian Ornithology. This engaging auto-biography describes how Salim Ali chose the road not taken. After all the ordeals in life that one normally faces in Indian society when they chose to be different from the madding crowd, Salim Ali – a simple man with just a pair of binoculars in his hand becomes a trailblazer in the field of Indian Ornithology. In the process of this description, he does not fail to bring out the forgotten landscapes and an element of conservation interlaced in his writing.

Eighty-seven at the time of writing, Ali vividly describes his childhood adventures in the wild and later his expeditions through the entire Indian subcontinent. Born into a Muslim family of Bombay, orphaned at the age of ten, and brought up by his maternal uncle and aunt, Salim Ali is a man of perseverance who seriously pursued an unusual career that no one would have wished to, taking into account the financial situation of the family. Ali's chance encounter with an unusually coloured sparrow which sparked off the twelve-year-old's life-long passion for birds, and his subsequent affiliation with BNHS are thoroughly detailed.

[Srikanth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as it gives an honest account of the state of affairs in India few years prior to and post independence. We get to understand the shocking details of how the maharajahs of the erstwhile kingdoms went about shooting birds and beasts indiscriminately for recreation and also to flaunt their skill with other VIPs. One such rajah would kill the last remaining three cheetahs and make the species extinct in India.

Salim Ali states that his love for birds is not of a sentimental variety and thus he shot, killed and skinned thousands of birds in his lifetime for ornithological purposes and also for game shooting and recreation. It is hard to approve such love for birds even though he has conducted a lot of bird surveys and has championed the cause of birds and bird sanctuaries across India.

Overall, a worthwhile read.

[Pravin Subramanian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sálim Ali's autobiography which I had consciously avoided for my distaste in autobiography and bias that they tend to be hagiographies more than anything else. But it was a pleasant sight to see that this wasn't a hagiography.

Rife with stories of adventure and misadventure, the story of a naturalist is most relatable to another naturalist. Although the times that Ali lived and died in may never return, it does rub off the spirit of adventure, the all too real perils of a difficult camp partner and the largely solitary life that is the inevitable outcome from the pursuit of the wild ones.

[Vaishnavi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fact that the book was an illustrated version came as a surprise to me. A very nicely illustrated book that gives a very brief picture of the life of Salim Ali. I wish it could have been a little more elaborate and a little bit more interesting..

[Rohidas · Rating 5 out of 5]

like

[SHOBHA MENON · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is an autobiography by India's celebrated ornithologist, Salim Ali. He traces his earliest fascination for birds from the time he shot a Yellow-throated sparrow as a small boy and took it to the Bombay Natural History Society for identification. The story starts before World War 1. It is a very fascinating read about the many arduous journeys, often very dangerous, he took just to spot rare birds in Afghanistan, Tibet, Burma, and the princely states. The book also brings out the various encounters with famous people who supported his efforts like Nehru, Mrs. Gandhi, and the British Raj officials. It is an eyeopener of an India when no infrastructure existed. What amazed me was Salim Ali's passion not just for the birds but the ecology in which they were found when he faced insurmountable obstacles like poor infrastructure, poor equipment, etc. which the bird watcher of today never has to face. A must-read for any bird lover. I read the 1993 print which has a few typos. The later editions may be error-free.

[Ram Vasudeva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of this book re-lives his boyhood chance encounter of observing sparrows to becoming the father of Indian Ornithology. It is an exceptional journey according to me- at least with the challenges he must have faced during the early 19th Century. A few decades before that Darwin in his native England had published the origin of species along with his friend Alfred Russell Wallace! Salim Ali also re-counts his field work, notes and challenges in an era that was so hostile for carrying out scientific studies as casual killing (shikar) and colonial influences sometimes came in the way of doing proper science. In my opinion, he tells us the first ever description of female mate choice (polyandry) in a passerine bird in his ancestral home. An exceptional person to have had a chat with and a much deserved read as he strived to put India on the global-Ornithology research, and very much succeeded.

[Vijay Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read for anyone who want to know how Ornithology got a philip in India. The book is very short and can be read in a day or less. Author shares fascinating experiences and thrills of bird watching. He also laments about how Game business ruined some of the prominent species of this sub continent. Overall one gets to understand how birds are studied and this study involves lot of killing and skinning of birds. I remember the incidence he shared of some bright light arrangement at an Island in Europe which was used a killing ground for migratory birds. Though i personally felt a bit sad on the countless birds that were killed for studies but it is essential for younger generation to read and take a path which is sustainable and does not ruin the balance. I recommend this book to everyone who want to get a brief idea of the man who is called the grand old man of Ornithology of India.

[Manoharan]

വിശ്വവഖ്യാതനായ ഇന്ത്യൻ പക്ഷിനിരീക്ഷ കനായ സാലിം അലിയുടെ ആത്മകഥയായ The fall of a sparrow എന്ന പുസ്തകത്തിൻ്റെ മലയാള പരിഭാഷയാണ ഒരു കുരുവിയുടെ പതനം' മാതൃഭൂമി പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിച്ച ഈ പുസ്തകത്തിൻ്റെ പരിഭാഷ കെ.ബി പ്രസന്നകുമാർ
സാലിം അലി ബേർഡ് മേൻ ഓഫ് ഇന്ത്യ എന്നാണ് അറിയപ്പെടുന്നത്. പത്തൊമ്പതാം നൂറ്റാണ്ടിൻ്റെ ആദ്യ പാദങ്ങളിൽ വളരെ പരിമിതമായ സൗകര്യങ്ങളിൽ പക്ഷിനിരീക്ഷണത്തിനിറങ്ങിയ സാലിം അലി പിന്നീട് അതു തൻ്റെ കർമ്മവഴിയായി തിരഞ്ഞെടുക്കുകയാണ്. ഒരു നിമി ത്ത മെന്നോണം തൻ്റെ മുന്നിൽ വന്നു വീണ ഒരു കുരുവിയിൽ നിന്നാണ് സംഭവ ബഹുലമായ ആ ജീവിതം ആരംഭിക്കുന്നത്.

അതീവഹൃദ്യമായി വായിക്കാവുന്ന ഒരു പുസ്തകമാണു ഇത്. വിജ്ഞാന പ്രദവുമാണ്.

[Udit Nair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bird man of india.

[Ranjeeta · Rating 5 out of 5]

I very excited to read about this book because I read this story about bird watcher which about in my book

[Tej Kumar Nepal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the autobiography of the celebrated ornithologist, the late Sàlim Ali. Looking back at the age of eighty-seven, the author narrates a story which is packed with adventure in the outdoors. He traces his earliest fascination for birds to the time that he first shot a Yellow-throated Sparrow and had it identified at the office of the Bombay Natural History Society, several years before World War I. Subsequent chapters describe birding expeditions to almost every area of the subcontinent, including the old Princely States, and Burma, Tibet and Afghanistan.

Sàlim Ali's close association with a great many eminent people - such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Sidney Dillon Ripley and E. P. Gee - features prominently in the book.

Sàlim Ali is famous as much for the way he writes about birds as for the commensurate depth of his knowledge of avifauna. His special ability to communicate all that he observes with wit and elegance is here brought to bear on his own life and the changing world in which he has lived. The result is an immensely readable book - for the birdwatcher, the shikari, the ecologist and the general readers.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was given this as a gift in advance of a birding trip to Northern India (which did not materialize ... yet). Very idiosyncratic, poorly edited autobiography of the man considered the father of Indian ornithology. Charming decriptions of middle-class life in pre-Independence and -Partition India.
It is clanging to a modern reader to learn about how birds had to be shot to be catalogued. There seems to be no dichotomy in Ali's time between conservation and this practice, plus big-game hunting. He casually mentions how wasteful it was when a maharaja's shooting party killed 35 tigers in 33 days. (There are now only 3,000+/- tigers left in the wild.)
Loved the descriptions of the Mt. Kailas expedition, as I have been to that part of the world and at that elevation. Gorgeous color plates of bird illustrations were the best part of my edition.