Madhaviah Krishnan (30 June 1912 – 18 February 1996), better known as M. Krishnan, was a pioneering Indian wildlife photographer, writer and naturalist.

Early life

M. Krishnan was born in Tirunelveli on 30 June 1912 and was the youngest of eight siblings. His father was a Tamil writer and reformer A. Madhaviah who worked with the Salt and Abkari Department of the Government of Madras. His father's writings included one of the first realistic Tamil novels, Padmavathi Charithram published in 1898 and an English novel Thillai Govindan published in 1916. In 1942, he was offered employment by the Maharaja of Sandur near Bellary in Karnataka.

Photography

Along with his whimsical prose, poetry and drawing he used photography as another tool for expression. He worked only with black and white film. His equipment was, according to naturalist E. P. Gee, 'a large, composite affair, with the body of one make and a tele lens of another, and other parts and accessories all ingeniously mounted together by himself. I cannot swear that I saw proverbial bootlace used to fix them all together, but I am sure there must have been some wire and hoop somewhere!' He called his equipment the Super Ponderosa. Krishnan was a not a big fan of technological advances and was unimpressed by the display of India's first jet aircraft. He declared them as mechanical, chemical and inhuman and was impressed more by the living muscular speed of animals... and if you want to see something sustained in its effortless, rhythmic impetuosity, you should watch a herd of blackbuck going all out for a few miles-there is tangible, real speed for you.

Philosophy

Krishnan was unhappy with the Indian system of school education. In a 1947 essay, Krishnan wrote,

In 1967 he asked several university graduates to name two red-flowered tree or an exclusively Indian animal. Nobody passed his test and he wrote

Writing about the Indian consciousness of nature he wrote

He refused a paid invitation from Air India for a trip to London for eminent Indians. He refused on another occasion an invitation from the Smithsonian Institution. He was a fierce individualist and a recluse. Author Ramachandra Guha called him a self-reliant, Thoreauvian individualist who would not allow a mere government to pay for him. He however accepted the Padma Shri from the Indian Government in 1970.

In some of his writings he was critical and opinionated and was not well known for his diplomacy. He would refuse to let editors change his texts and that was his condition when asked to contribute a column. He fiercely argued that the usage Himalaya was correct and that a redundant 's' at its end did not respect its Sanskrit origin.

Honours

Krishnan was awarded the Padma Shri by the Indian government in 1960 for his work. His birth centenary in 2012, was commemorated by the Madras Naturalists' Society, Prakriti Foundation and the IIT Wildlife Club. The Madras Naturalists' Society which featured most of Krishnan's writings in their journal Blackbuck in the 1990s gives away the "M. Krishnan Memorial Nature Writing Award" annually.

Notes

References

  • Baskaran, S. T. (ed.) (2002) Mazhiakalamum Kuyilosaiyum. Ma. KrishnanIyarkaiyiyal katturaikal. Kalachuvadu Pathipagam. Pages 208. A collection of his Tamil writings including his line drawings.
  • Ramachandra Guha (ed). 2000. Nature's Spokesman : M. Krishnan and Indian wildlife. Delhi, Oxford University Press. .
  • Chandola, Ashish, Shanthi Chandola, T.N.A. Perumal (compilers) (2006) Eye in the Jungle/M. Krishnan. Hyderabad, Universities Press. .
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20060505102642/http://ncf-india.org/pubs/Madhusudan%202001.pdf
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20061201232624/http://in.news.yahoo.com/060505/48/641nx.html