Enchanting Kerala

Book Review- Periyar Tiger Reserve

Ever felt words throb with wild ‘life’?

It is not often one comes across a book that can hold, in between its hardbound covers, raw wilderness. ‘Periyar Tiger Reserve’, the first in the coffee table book series - Sanctuary for the Soul - does just that.

Published by Stark World on behalf of Kerala Tourism, the series comprises four books dealing with four major wildlife sanctuaries in Kerala.

The book on Periyar Tiger Reserve is about the largest and the oldest protected area in God’s Own Country.

This highly informative book is peppered with anecdotes and the firsthand account of the writer Mr. Manu Remakant. The unpretentious style of narration teleports readers to a whole new world, where Nature thrives blissfully unaware of the world dominated by humans.

The writer, through poignant yet lyrical prose, throws light on the plague of deforestation and poaching that once threatened this sanctuary. He also explains how these attempts were countered by the novel approach of turning ‘poachers into protectors’. The tribal people and their intricate bond with the forests are also portrayed quite absorbingly in this book.

Vivid descriptions, coupled with subtle imagery bring to the reader the essence of the wilderness. This is further accentuated by excellent photographs taken by noted wildlife photographer Mr. Balan Madhavan.

Through the book - ‘Periyar Tiger Reserve’- the writer has unveiled many amazing aspects of this magnificent sanctuary. And he has also succeeded in conveying to the reader what can be achieved through proper conservation.

The following extract from the book sums up the spirit of Periyar Tiger Reserve:

“Periyar is where the honey gatherers still leave a hefty chunk of syrup on the hive itself with the thought that a famished bear might come after them.

Periyar is where a tribal watcher blames himself for his oversight to justify the animals that almost mauled him to death two times.

Periyar is where 925 square kilometers of sprawling forest encompassing different habitats and a vast variety of species, beats like the pulse of a single being, as a paean to Mother Nature.

Here, unhindered and most often unobserved, plants bloom into flowers-opening the festival for the feasting insects- and, in time, mellow into fleshy carp beckoning the hungry, and then fall one morning to keep an appointment with the creatures in the soil.

Can such magic ever be accounted?”