Killing Grounds

This book is a personal account of adventures experienced by Dr. Rahul Shukla, scion of a feudal family, where tiger hunting has been handed down from generation to generation. This tradition of big game hunting provided the author with an opportunity to witness at first hand the magnificence of Indian wild life as also the terrible loss it suffered at the hands of hunters and poache This era of ravaging the wild started in the middle of the 19th century upto 1972, when it finally concluded with the blanket ban on shooting.

The author reminiscences on the memories of stirring adventures of this period. He recounts his first hand experiences of the massive primeval Terai jungles and later also their decimation along with the rapidly vanishing population of its denizens.

Dr.Rahul Shukla and his photographer companion Yogesh Kumar are able to create a gripping narrative with words and photos of their sojourns through the jungles of Terai. Their vivid descriptions make the mysteries of the jungles unfold in front of the reader’s eyes. Their commitment to researching the animal behaviour and their assiduous pursuits of the animals trails has resulted in this fascinating book.

The author is deeply concerned with the vanishing populations and ignorance about wild life and the dark spell it has cast on to the Indian ecosystem. The author, for the first time narrates the “the sugarcane tiger”, an entirely new and unique fallout of man’s interference with nature.

The book is all about “Killing Grounds” which refers to the great animal kingdom, where at every moment the struggle for survival among the prey and the predator is enacted. The narration is spellbinding besides being informative and scientific.