Our school library had a system where we were only allowed to choose among books that were considered �suitable� for us to read. Raised on a steady diet of Enid Blyton books, I still remember the first time we were given one of Jim Corbett�s books to read. Our teachers had kept these books away from us, because they worried that our young and innocent female minds would be affected by tales of man eaters. They seemed to be partly right, because, for the first week, many of us spent sleepless nights imagining man eaters instead of monsters under our bed! I was fascinated by these tales though, and continued to read his books, in spite of the occasional nightmare!
It took a long time for me to discover that not all of Corbett�s books were about man eaters! There was so much more! He wrote about the people who made up �His India� as he called it, about the villages, the customs and traditions, their beliefs and faiths, their fear and their superstitions�.. and above all, their acceptance of him as one among their own. As I read more and more of Corbett�s books, the desire to visit his land grew too, but the trip never materialized�.. Until last month, when Lakshmi called up, inviting me for the Club Mahindra Bloggers meet at their Corbett resort.