As a child, Romulus Whitaker enjoyed watching black and red ants through a magnifying glass. The innocent pastime layered his insights into their world: their little wars over bits of sugar, their tiny negotiations, and their arrival at a consensus.

Years later, as he ventured deep into the wild — rescuing snakes, setting up the Madras Snake Park in 1969, the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust & Centre for Herpetology in 1976, and the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS) in Karnataka in 2005 using his Whitley Award grant — Whitaker found himself well prepared for the quiet complexity of nature. His work would go on to focus deeply on rainforest biodiversity, particularly the elusive king cobra.

In a chat with The Better India, this ‘Snakeman of India’, a moniker that has followed him closely, looks back on past decades and his deep fascination for snakes that hasn’t dimmed one bit. Herpetologists hail him as a bonified genius for his bond with the reptiles, and, as we learn, the roots of this love lie in an innocent story from his childhood.

‘Promise me you won’t kill a snake’, Whitaker’s mother chided him the day he returned home with a dead garter snake. “I was four years old at the time, but still remember how sad it made her,” Whitaker explains, adding that he had no role to play in the deed; it was his bunch of mischievous friends. But he admits he hadn’t done much to stop them. To make up for his mistake, the next time around, he brought home a snake that was alive.

“The look of approval on her (his mother’s) face and her reaction — ‘It’s such a gorgeous creature’ — was enough to captivate me,” he shares. Even now, at 82, the moral heart of this Padma Shri awardee’s work lies in a deep awe and respect for the reptile.

In his latest book, Snakes, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll: My Early Years (2024), which Whitaker has co-authored with his journalist wife Janaki Lenin, he recounts how his mother’s encouragement towards the reptile fuelled his own.

He writes, “After that episode, I took to turning over every stone-not for earthworms but for snakes.” He goes on to describe the snakes he caught: milksnakes........

© The Better India