March 3 was World Wildlife Day which seems a perfect week to remember Gerald Durrell.
I met the man once at a time when literature festivals had not made writers commonplace. I was just a wide-eyed schoolboy in Kolkata and I don’t recall anything the portly pink-faced man with twinkling eyes and a bushy beard said when he visited our school but I remember the delightful little animal sketches he made on the fly on the optical projector. Later he signed a copy of one of his books for me. It was my first literary autograph. I was starstruck. This was not just any author but Gerald Durrell who had written one of my most beloved books - My Family and Other Animals. This year marks Durrell’s centenary.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
Gerald Durrell died in 1995 but his wife Lee Durrell came to the Kolkata Literary Meet this year. While Gerald Durrell remains beloved in India, what many Indians don’t know is he was born in India too. His father was an engineer in the steel factory town of Jamshedpur says Lee.
LD1: In fact, a few years ago I went to Jamshedpur to see Jerry's birthplace. And the bungalow where Jerry was born was actually built by his father.
Sadly the father died suddenly, Gerald Durrell was only two then.
LD2: And mother, Louisa Durrell was absolutely distraught. And her family said, oh, you oh, you must go home. You know, as they said in those days, but I mean home for them. That family was India was not Britain.
Gerald Durrell’s older brother Lawrence, who became famous as the author of books like The Alexandria Quartet got sick of the English weather.
LD3: He said, come on, everybody, we've got to go find some sunshine like we had in India. And that's why they all decamped and went to Corfu.
So in a way the Corfu which Gerald Durrell made world famous was the India substitute.
LD4: Absolutely, absolutely. Without doubt. He often said that they really, really missed India a lot and found in Corfu something, you know, that satisfied that desire for, you know, colour, sunlight, vibrancy, that, that kind of thing.
But he also found a magical childhood. No real school but lots of lessons in the sea, in the garden, exploring little insects and birds nest, with owls, dogs and tortoises as pets.
While many of Durrell’s books were about his animal collecting and studying expeditions in remote corners of the world, the Corfu books which combined family and animals were special. He wrote them, says Lee, because he wanted to raise money for his animal expeditions.
LD5: he said, you know, I'm going to write a best seller, and a best seller requires several ingredients. Um. One is humor and another is in Funny People. So that was his family. Another is animals. People love animal things and another is exotic, beautiful locations. So a sense of place. So we decided to put all those together. He had all of those together in his childhood in Corfu, and sure enough, it became an instant bestseller.
And decades later it lives on as a beloved TV series. The Durrells
It was a family almost made for TV. Gerry with his pet owl and scorpions. His brother Lawrence trying to be a literary giant. The other brother Leslie dismantling guns while sister Margo drifted around in a cloud of poetry, romance and skin creams. And mother presiding over it all.
THE DURRELLS:
And while Lawrence became the more serious literary writer, Gerry who just wanted to be a conservationist might have become more beloved. Each now has a bust in a park in Corfu says Lee.
LD6: And whenever I walk past them, I see whose nose is the shiniest. Because it's supposed to be good luck, you know, to rub a brass statue. And it's always. It's Jerry's nose. It's the shiniest.
He taught me that to truly love nature, you couldn’t just love the showy animals like lions and tigers and pandas. You had to care for plain toads, drab birds and small rodents. Or what he called the little brown jobs.
LD7: Sometimes he called the little brown jobs. You know, the ones that were kind of obscure and drab and small. Sometimes he also called them the little ones of God. And I think that's a really wonderful description.
And that beauty and wonder could be found not just in the Savannah or tropical rainforest but in your own backyard.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW