Kenneth Anderson (writer)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is missing citations or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (January 2008)

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (January 2008)

For other persons of the same name, see Kenneth Anderson.

Kenneth Anderson

Born	1910
Died	1974
Nationality	Indian
Subjects	Wildlife, big game hunting, Southern India

Kenneth Anderson (1910-1974) was an Indian writer and hunter who wrote many books about his adventures in the jungles of South India many far from his home town of Bangalore.

1 Background
2 Schooling
3 Career as a hunter
4 Hobbies
5 Books
6 External links

[edit] Background

Kenneth Anderson hailed from a Scottish family settled in India for six generations. His Father was Superintendent of the F.C.M.A. in Poona dealing with the salaries paid to military personnel having an honorary rank of Captain. His father also had a Rifle and often hunted for waterbirds. Even though his father was not a hunter of man eating carnivores, he was the person who had influenced Kenneth to became a well known shooter.

[edit] Schooling

Kenneth Anderson did his schooling in Bishop Cotton School Bangalore and then at St Josephs College. He worked for many years at the Post Office and during the war at the Hindustan Aircraft Factory as a Superintendent in the blueprint and planning Dept. He lived in a bungalow not far from Queen Victoria's statue at the head of South Promenade (called Mahatma Gandhi Road today) and also owned some land near Bannerghatta, today a suburb of Bangalore.

[edit] Career as a hunter

His love for the denizens of Indian jungle led him to big game hunting and eventually to writing real-life adventure stories. He would often go into the jungle alone and unarmed to meditate and enjoy the beauty of untouched nature. Notable kills of his include the Sloth bear of Mysore, the Leopard of Gummalapur, the Tigress of Jowlagiri and the Tiger of Mundachipallam.

[edit] Hobbies

Kenneth Anderson and his pariah dog Nipper, whom he adopted during his hunt for the Leopard of Gummalapur

His books are hailed as classics of jungle lore. His style of writing is unassuming, descriptive and engaging as he talks about his adventures with many wild animals. While most stories are about hunting tigers and panthers (or leopards) - particularly those that have turned man-eater, he also includes chapters on his first-hand encounters with dangerous elephants, bison and bears. There are also stories about the less 'popular' creatures like Indian wild dogs, hyenas and snakes. He takes pains to explain the habits and personalities of these animals.

Anderson also gives valuable insights into the people of the Indian jungles of his time, with their lush green woods teeming with wildlife and local inhabitants having to contend with poor quality roads, communication and health facilities. His books delve into the habits of the jungle tribes, their survival tactics and their day-to-day lives.

Besides focussing on Indian wildlife, he also explores the subject of the occult and writes about his live experiences with unusual phenomena (for which he has no explanation). He has helped the jungle dwelling tribals from the horrors of maneaters in most of the south Indian states. He also was well versed in speaking Kannada, the language of his home town Bangalore, and also spoke Tamil, the language spoken in the neighbouring states to some extent. He had a Studebaker car and often used a .405 Winchester rifle for hunting. He was a pioneer of wildlife conservation in South India, and spent his later years "shooting" with a camera.

[edit] Books

Anderson's books are fairly popular, and recently two omnibuses of his work have been published. The following is a list of the books written by him:

Nine Maneaters And One Rogue (1954)
The Black Panther of Sivanipalli and Other Adventures of the Indian Jungle (1959)
Jungles Long Ago
Man Eaters and Jungle Killers
Tiger Roars
Tales from the Indian Jungle
This is the Jungle
The Call of the Man Eater

Anderson's love for India and all it stands for is very evident in all his books. He was a firm believer in the power of alternative medicine and always carried a box containing various kinds of natural herbs from the jungle with him. Anderson died of cancer at the age of 64.