My mother was a single mother. She had divorced my father and raised me and my older sister in northern New York state, out in the country. We lived in what could be called a mansion because my mother’s eldest sister was a rather successful commercial artist in New York City, and she bought this piece of 40 acres of land with a house, which was built in 1813. It was a 22-room house and she was very happy that we would spend time there and look after it. Buy Now | Our best subscription plan now has a special price For me, as a six-year-old kid, it was paradise because, number one, I didn't have to go to school. And number two, it was surrounded by woods, streams and plenty of snakes, no venomous ones, my mother quickly established that. I guess that's why she was so promotional about what I was doing, catching snakes and bringing them home. She got an old aquarium- which is now called a terrarium. It was an old broken one that couldn't hold water anymore, but she landscaped it with few rocks, moss and grass and we would keep garter snakes and other local snakes that I caught, in it for a few days and then release it. It was a very good start for me. It was just natural that I started learning about nature just hands-on. I was too young to be able to read at that stage but later on, my mother got me something called The Boy's Book of Snakes, which was one of those kids' books with nice illustrations. I learned as much as I could from that, and I probably became a very obnoxious teacher of adults. I would ask adults why they hated them. Most of them were non-venomous and they were beautiful. They would say, 'Beautiful, are you kidding, kid?' I really must have been obnoxious in looking back because I was just so vehement about how wonderful they were. My formal education was very sketchy-I barely finished high school. When we moved to India, I studied at what is now Kodaikanal International School. I think they graduated me to just get rid of me. I then got into the University of Wyoming. I chose Wyoming because it had a course in wildlife management, which, at age of 16, when I graduated from high school, is what I thought I would do for the rest of my life. And the second thing is the state advertised that it has more deer than people and I said, 'wow, that's the state for me'. I'm kind of reluctant to say it now but I loved going hunting in those days. I have changed quite a bit . I only did one year of college and the teaching experience in my life was joining up with something called the Miami Serpentarium in 1963. I was bumming around the country, I was kind of a travelling salesman and I did various jobs in America for a couple of years. before landing up at the Miami Serpentarium. There was a guy there by the name of William Haast. Bill Haast became my guru, although he was a reluctant, quiet man. I got to work for him for two years before I got drafted into the US Army and during that two-year period, I gained such great knowledge in keeping snakes and extracting the venom and understanding different species of snakes because he had snakes from all over the world — from Australia and India and Africa. So I got the black mambas and Australian tiger snakes and others. It was a magical experience. At the same time, I was not only working there, I was also spending a lot of time out in the Everglades, out in the swamp lands, with other young guys who like me were obsessed with snakes. We would go out and hunt snakes and I learned a lot about snakes' habits by being with these guys there. They weren't much older than me, but they were very knowledgeable. They had lived their whole lives in Florida so they knew a lot and taught me a lot. As far as my learning experiences go, you can see right away it was very little academia and more hands-on with people who knew their stuff. In India, there are very few outdoor activities for kids in school. If you're rich enough to be able to go to a private school, which has programmes then it's fine, but in the average government school, it is pretty sad. We have been trying very hard and we have injected some of our stuff into the curriculum. They have lifted chapters from a couple of my books and put it in their curriculum, oddly enough for English and not natural history! I think natural history doesn't figure very big. I get a lot of correspondence from kids who probably mostly have already graduated saying “Now what can I do? I am so interested in snakes'. Luckily, now there many institutes and organisations that they can join. The average parent in India would want their kids to become engineers or doctors. Kids who are exasperated at what their parents want them to do and they would much rather get out there in the wild and do something exciting and I am fully sympathetic towards that. Being amidst nature has been my best learning experience. As I speak, I'm sitting on the edge of a lake and I have a fishing rod in my hand and I am waiting for a large catfish to bite, I am watching dragonflies and a kingfisher just came and got a fish. As told to Devyani Onial
