MUMBAI, DHNS: In a unique initiative, the radio broadcasts of the late Dr Salim Ali have been compiled in the form of a book.
Salim Ali (12 November 1896 – 20 June 1987), the legendary ornithologist and naturalist, was the first Indian to conduct systematic bird surveys across India and wrote several bird books that popularised ornithology in India.
Salim Ali was one of the pillars of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS). The book - “Words for Birds” has been edited by renowned author Tara Gandhi.
It’s the first, and only, collection of all of ornithologist Salim Ali’s radio broadcasts.
Salim Ali has long been synonymous with the scholarship, appreciation, and conservation of Indian birdlife.
It is not as well known that he was also the most engaging raconteur about birds. This aspect – the great ornithologist as an enthralling storyteller – is most apparent in this, the first and only, collection of all his radio broadcasts.
The 35 talks that comprise this book were broadcast between 1941 and 1985 and show Salim Ali’s exceptional skill as an oral communicator and bird propagandist.
He described the purpose of these radio transmissions: “The object of these talks is really to interest listeners, in the first instance for the healthy pleasure and satisfaction bird watching affords rather than for its intrinsic scientific possibilities.”
The talks cover many topics – bird habits, bird habitats, birds at risk – in an elegantly conversational and informative style.
Birds, he tells us, has a crucial place in nature’s cyclic processes; they benefit agriculture; they contribute to the economy in ways we neither see nor fully understand.
While the speaker’s focus is largely on birds, it is also evident that he is interested in all forms of wildlife and contemporary conservation issues. Each talk reads like a short essay.
Dr Salim Ali’s massive corpus includes the bestselling Book of Indian Birds and the monumental ten-volume Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan (co-authored with S Dillon Ripley). The Birds of Kutch, Indian Hill Birds, Birds of Kerala, The Birds of Sikkim, and The Fall of a Sparrow, his autobiography, are some of his other well-known books.