Book: The Story of India’s Cheetahs
Author: Divyabhanusinh
Publication: The Marg Foundation
Price: Rs 2800
Earlier this week, the Union minister for forest and environment, Bhupendra Yadav, visited the Kuno National Park to take stock of Project Cheetah, which has lost three adults and three cubs since its inception. The minister would do well to acquaint himself with the excellently researched volume, THE STORY OF INDIA’S CHEETAHS (The Marg Foundation, Rs 2,800) by Divyabhanusinh.
The book is exhaustive in tracing the history of the cheetah, the reasons for its popularity across the continents, the causes that led to its precipitous decline worldwide, and its extinction in India. What is most interesting, though, is the rich visual archival material — paintings, sculptures, photographs, curios, nothing is spared — reproduced in the book. Anecdotes on the care of pet cheetahs (pictures top right and middle) are funny and heartwarming. Given the author’s involvement in Project Cheetah, his offhand dismissal of all reservations about its success appears somewhat biased.
