CONSERVATION AS A LITERARY LEITMOTIF

Realistic adventure novels with conservation and environment as the background shape children's perceptions about issues that matter

- ARUP KUMAR DUTTA

My adventure novel for young adults, titled The Kaziranga Trail, was published in 1979, over four decades ago. Critics have attributed a number of “firsts” to this book. For one thing, it is considered to be the first juvenile novel written in English having Indian child characters as well as an Indian theme and background.

I well recall that, as a child, in the absence of alternative reading material, I had to gorge on books in English with Western characters, themes and backgrounds. There was a paucity of good children's books in the regional languages too. Thus our generation had grown up on books by writers like Enid Blyton and became familiar with characters like the Hardy Boys. Such a dearth had induced me and others to make a determined effort to create a body of children's literature in English that was totally Indian in texture.

The Kaziranga Trail had been my maiden essay in that endeavour. Critics have also called this the first English juvenile novel in India to have conservation as its thematic core. The central characters in the book are three youngsters, Dhanai, Bubul and Jonti, from a village adjacent to the Kaziranga Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam. The Sanctuary, apart from other wild animals, is home to over half the global population of the Indian one-horned rhinoceros, an endangered species.

Because of false beliefs associated with it, the rhino’s horn is in great demand in many regions of Asia, where it is used as an ingredient in traditional medicines. Unimaginably high prices are fetched by rhino horns, which make this animal vulnerable to poaching.

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