Sights and sounds
Tulip Chowdhury is enthused by an old tale
A Zoo in My Luggage is a hilarious account of Gerald Durrell's world of animals when he starts collecting them for a zoo of his own. It is a refreshing experience to enter the animal world and get insights into how the animals behave under different situations. Once the reader starts reading the book it is impossible to put it down until the last page comes with the last burst of laughter and keeps the reader smiling for a long time. Gerald Durrell and his wife Jacquie go to Bafut in the British Cameroons to collect animals for a private zoo. This is the romping true story of the writer's sixth trip to Bafut. The following letter is from a hunter in Bafut to the writer when he starts to collect the animals: " Dear Sir, Here are two animals I am senting you like those you see me in the picture. Any tipe of money you want to sent to me try and trapp the money in a small piece of paper and sent it to that boy that brought animals. You know that a hunter always be derty so you should try to send me a bar of soap. Good greetings Yrs…Peter N'amablong" While the writer Gerald Durrell meets different people of Bafut he comes across people who at times make him angry, confused or sometimes have him double up with laughter. The chief of Bafut, called the "Fon" has twenty wives and forty children to boast of. Each wife has her own hut. The huts are all lined up with the chief's villa at one end. The writer notes with curiosity that the Fon moves with three or four of his favorite wives. Although the Fon has so many children, he is very much the dominating father to all of them. The wives are simply terrified of him! When Gerald Durrell wants to cross a shallow river that contains hippos the boatman at first refuses to go. After much cajoling and a reward of a large sum of money the boatman does agree to cross the dangerous river. And then they pass by a hippo but the creature does not attack them. The boatman smiles grandly and says, "Sah dat ipopo no be man……dat a woman." For once the writer feels glad that women are considered to be the weaker sex after all. And of the huge hippo the writer says, "….A rock we were passing some fifteen feet away suddenly rose out of the water and gazed at us with the bulbous astonished eyes, snoring out two slender fountains of spray, like a miniature whale. We sat and stared at the hippo and it stared at us. Of the two, the hippo seemed the more astonished. The chubby, pink-grey face floated on the surface of the water like a disembodied head at a séance. The great eyes stared at us with the innocent appraisal of a baby….." Gerald Durrell gives varied accounts of his various adventures while he collects animals. There is a long battle with a python that the writer wants to capture. At the end the snake sits at the end of a cave where it is impossible to reach it. The python hisses loudly. The writer thinks that the snake is making fun of him and is teasing him. Although the writer gives humorous accounts of the animals he meets, the reader is well aware of how many near-death experiences he encounters. One cannot but respect the writer for his courage and humor. Writing about a bushbaby he captures the writer writes, "...it was a neat grey face with ears folded back like fans against the side of the head and two enormous golden eyes that looked at me with the horror-stricken expression of an elderly spinster who had discovered a man in the bathroom cupboard." In Bafut the writer declares prizes for the people who collect animals for him. Every morning there would a long queue of people with animals. He has owls, monkeys, squirrels, antelopes, snakes, water chevrotain and all other animals he can get hold of. There are interesting stories of these animals settling down in their new homes. Providing food for them is no easy job either. The writer requests the villagers to provide the food. So he finds long queues of children coming to him with beetles, beetle larva, frogs, snails, worms, birds'eggs, etc. The writer heads home to Bournemouth with his animals. It is a month long preparation to get the animals ready for the voyage by sea. All goes well till the zoo in the luggage comes home. Difficulties begins when the writer and his wife find themselves back at home with Cholomondeley, the chimpanzee, Bug-eye the bush-baby and the other members of the zoo and nowhere to put them. Thus begins the writer's account of another humorous story that simply cannot wait to be read.
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