Jim Corbett Essay

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Jim Corbett Jim Corbett was born on 25th July 1875 to Mary Jane and William Christopher Corbett. Corbett grew up in Kaldhungi and Nainital in the then United Province along with his 9 siblings. Jim Corbett was a second generation Indian as his parents were born to parents of English-Irish percentage. The childhood of Jim was largely spent in Nainital and Kaladhungi where he was taken care by his eldest sister Maggie. It was she who used to take Jim for stroll in to Jungle and that is where Jim Corbett had his first tryst with wildlife. He used to accompany a local poacher named Kunwar Singh for adventure hunting in toforest. Kunwar Singh would later become a life long friend and advisor of Corbett. Jim Corbett Jim and other 'white' boys mixed freely with Indian kids in kaladhungi, picked up several of the local dialects, and became very fluent in them. This would prove very useful later when hunting man-eaters as it allowed him to commiserate withstricken villagers in a way that touched them deeply. Soon after schooling he joined the railways at age 18 as a temporary fuel inspector. He was given an assignment as a Trans-shipment Inspector at Mokameh-Ghat in Bihar. For next twenty years he remained in this position and managed a large workforce. It was during this time that Corbettbecame hugely popular as a hunter of Man-eaters. Whenever a tiger or a leopard became a man-eater and people begged him to help them, he would take a leave of a few days in which hewould try to kill the man-eaters. After years of following man-eaters to kill them, he obtained a great appreciation of how clever and cunning these animals can be. His experiences while tracking the Man-eating Leopard of Rudra Prayag, Kumaon and Champawat over a period of one year makes for fascinating and bone-chilling reading. Jim's greatest asset was his ability to doggedly pursue a man-eater and tries to

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