The Backyard Zoo That Led To A Lifelong Love For Nature

Usha Rajagopalan grew up with giant squirrels and black monkeys for pets. She remembers them with love in her new book.

When we complete the chapter titled ‘Hiss Tales’ of ‘The Zoo In My Backyard’, my nine-year-old son is somewhat disappointed: “Why didn’t they keep the snakes as pets?”

I shudder at the very thought and tell him it’s a good thing they didn’t but also suppress an involuntary laugh. After all, Usha Rajagopalan, the writer of this book, can be held entirely responsible for building up that expectation!

The Zoo In My Backyard is her account of a unique childhood in 1960s Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, spent in the company of animals. The animals, brought back by her father after his ‘tours’ were nurtured in their home before being taken back to the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo. The tours weren’t like the ones many of her friends’ fathers did. Rajagopalan’s father AS Ananthasubramaniam was a conservator of forests and on his tours to those areas, he got his lucky children a menagerie that is certainly worth a book and more.

From an elephant to a black monkey, peacocks to rabbits, mouse deer to a giant squirrel, Rajagopalan and her siblings had them all!

Usha Rajagopalan with her pets, Max & Tiffany/Image courtesy: Usha Rajagopalan

The autobiographical book, the prolific Rajagopalan’s eighth, is a tribute to her father, the man who instilled a lifelong love for conservation in her. It is aimed at creating that love in the reader’s heart too.

‘They (animals) came as weaklings or orphans whom we nursed back to health and surrendered to the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo. It broke our hearts to see these dear ones leave, but we derived strength from the fact that my father, Anna, as we called him, would get us another animal or bird before long. For in the call of duty, he had to travel to the remotest forests in the state of Kerala.’ Rajagopalan writes.

Her stories, laced with the touch of easy humour evident in much of her writing, make for fantastic reads, especially for a city-bred child like my son, who cannot believe Rajagopalan’s parents allowed her to keep a monkey as a pet. Named Kesavan, the antics of the black monkey as he learns to rip apart the fuse make for a chuckle-worthy chapter but also highlights the extent of dedication nurturing another living being takes. Like many of the pets, Kesavan’s impish behaviour gets too much for Manni, Rajagopalan’s harried mother. She held my real admiration through the book, considering the well-meaning pandemonium that surrounded her at home. Caught between the ever-eager children and her conservationist husband, Manni had to deal with several prospective pets whenever her husband was back from a forest tour – a baby elephant called Kuttan and for a very, very brief while – even an angry brown bear!

Usha and her siblings feeding deer at Neyyar Lake, Kerala/Image courtesy: Usha Rajagopalan

Enjoyed reading Gerald Durrell’s famous book ‘My family and Other Animals?’ Rajagopalan’s book will make a suitable companion for it on your bookshelf, its stories more relatable perhaps, as they are closer home. As Dr Lee Durell, his wife writes in the forward to this book:

What is more important than the popularity of this genre is what this genre of animal books reveal about human nature. It reveals an inescapable link between humans and animals and shows that humans are members of the animal kingdom, and our fellow creatures deserve our respect, admiration and love.

Rajagopalan, also well-known as one of the pioneers of citizen-led lake revival in Bengaluru, has wanted to write this book for several years. It began life earlier when she wrote a fortnightly column in The Deccan Herald called ‘Kookaburra Laughs’ about her childhood. ‘The Zoo in my Backyard’ includes some of those stories. Read it for a fascinating insight into a truly unusual childhood and the light-hearted yet valuable lessons in adopting, nurturing and letting go of what we love.

The Zoo In My Backyard is published by Manipal University Press. You can buy it here.

Cover image Silver Talkies