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Posted by Praveen on March 15, 19104 at 01:31:44:
Hi All,
Let me share with you some of the experiences we(Myself. Mr Jayaram and Mr.Ravi Srivastava) had on saturday trying to catch up with Anderson's
writings .We decided to kickstart our field work by trying to get hold of some of his memoribilia. Actually We were hoping to find some of his self autographed old books /writeups/paper cuttings. So with this intent in mind we decided to visit Whitefield on saturday. Mr.Jayaram picked me and Mr.Ravi up on the way in his car and off we went to Whitefield.Let me share with you an hour by hour account of our day over there
10.00 am: We first hit upon what we thought was the old bungalow where Anderson kept
all his pet wild animals and spent his last years before his death. The bungalow looked old
and decreipt looking ..ready to fall apart any moment but there was actually a local
family residing in it.We made enquiries with the residents and the owner of the bungalow
and found that this wasn't the one Anderson owned or stayed.Later we found out that the
bungalow didn't exist anymore and it was actually on the adjacent plot of land where now only
a restaurant stands in its place. Disappointing..because we thought of getting a snap or two of the old bungalow .
10.40 am: We then went in search of his grave in the one and only cemetery in
Whitefield for Anglo-Indians but again to our disappointment there was no such grave. Made some
enquiries in the local church which contained burial records for the cemetery but Anderson's
name was missing.Came to the conclusion that he must've been buried somewhere else after he
died in St.Martha's hospital.
11.15 am: Mr.Ravi knew some local Anglo-Indians who actually were interacted with
Kenneth Anderson while in whitefield and after more Q and A session with some of them our
trail led to one Mrs.Smith and her son Francis Smith's residence. After a warm welcome
Mrs.Smith was able to recollect some of the old memories of Anderson and his exploits. It so
happened that Mrs.Smith's husband Mr.Sydney Smith was an editor for The Deccan Herald at that
time. He and Anderson were close friends and went on shikar and tiger hunts on numerous
occasions. Mr.Smith recorded, wrote about and published these trips in the Deccan Herald(hope to
find these articles in their archives someday.!).We asked if Mr.Francis Smith had any
memoribilia on his father's writeups etc..He replied saying that his brother Mr.Clifford would
be the right person to talk to and possibly might have some of the stuff we were looking
for. Though we didn't get too much information, we were content that atleast we managed
to meet some folks who actually knew Anderson. So after spending an hour with them off we
went to meet Mr.Clifford who incidentally in staying temporarily in Banaswadi ,the same
locality where I stay currently !
1.30 pm : Met Mr.Clifford and over lunch at a local restaurant he told us a lot of interesting stories and incidents about not only Kenneth Anderson but also some of the other
unknown or lesser known shikaries operating at that time. The most interesting was
the one he told about two hunters, Dik Hardacre an Anglo-indian who is supposed to have
shot around 250 panthers and a specialist in panther hunting and another called Charles Hugh
Plunkett who specialised in shooting tigers.Plunkett often used to jokingly refer to panthers as 'pusycats' and asked Hardacre if he had shot any of his 'pusycats' lately!Probably
he regarded that only the tigers were worth hunting.. The story goes that there was
once a leopard which was injured by a musket, fired by a farmer,and it took refuge in a
nearby bush. Fearing the worst , the local villagers approached Hardacre to shoot the
panther before it could turn into a man-eater.Unfortunatey Hardacre wasn't around at that
time so they approached Plunkett instead. Plunkett,disdainful about shooting 'pusycats' ,
agreed to shoot it down.Little did he imagine what a 'pusycat' could do when injured. When
the villagers tried to flush out the panther from the thicket, it suddenly leapt out
aand was upon Plunkett in an instant.By sheer bad luck his gun jammed an as a result the
panther mauled him severely before escaping into the jungle. The villagers shifted the
unconcious Plunkett to a hospital. When Hardacre went to see him the last words Plunkett spoke
before he died were "One your pusycats got me Dik ". Sheer Irony !
There were a lot of other interesting things which Mr.Clifford told us. They were
mostly about other shikaries and their exploits. Some details about them...
Mr.J.R.Rao:
This gentleman was a big shikari who hunted about the same time as Kenneth Anderson
and his contemporaries.He is said to possess a fantastic collection of hunting rifles and
guns,complete with live ammunition and all even today.His current residence is said
to have trophies of most of the animals he shot during his hunting career. He even knew
Kenneth Anderson personally he claims. We plan to meet him sometime and have a glimpse of
him " museum/house" and also probably we even might get hold of some Anderson memoribilia
from him ! This is his address.
J.R.Rao
Senior Advisor
Consolidated Coffee Ltd
306,North Block,
Manipal Centre
47,Dikenson Road,Bangalore
ph.5592653,5598934
Residence:
'The House', 57/59,
Viviani Road
Richards Town
Bangalore
ph.5468479/5463172
cell:9448082778
Mr.Watson
Another great shikari rumoured to have shot more than 80 tigers.He lost one of his
legs in a war and used to move around using crutches but inspite of which he was a big game
hunter.
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Praveen