Romulus Whitaker interview: The snakeman of India on his autobiography Snakes, Drugs and Rock N’ Roll

Herpetologist and naturalist Romulus Whitaker's autobiography, ‘Snakes, Drugs, and Rock 'N' Roll’, delves into his fascinating life with reptiles and more

Promise me you won’t kill a snake — Romulus Whitaker’s mother said to the young boy, when he brought home his first milk snake in a jelly jar. He had found it under a rock on the pastures of Upstate New York’s Hoosick, where he spent a few of his childhood years. She called the creature beautiful. This precious moment set the tone for Whitaker’s life and career in the company of reptiles, big and small.

And, so it should come as no surprise that his life spills over more than one volume of an autobiography. The unassuming American who is hailed as ‘the snakeman of India’ — for Madras, the man behind the beloved Snake Park and Crocodile Bank founded in 1976 — lays bare his early years in the irreverent, engaging Snakes, Drugs, and Rock ‘N’ Roll: My Early Years (published by HarperCollins), the first part of his autobiography written with author and wife, Janaki Lenin.

Was the title meant to shock? From his home, on the outskirts of Bengaluru, the 80-year-old opens with a hearty, full laugh. “This seemed to be a title that would grab attention, at the snakes level, drugs level or the rock n’ roll level. It also reflects the age that I was talking about, the first 25 years of my life. I have had this title in mind for possibly 10 years!”

The book is an easy read with interludes from Rom’s school days, his time in service as a medic for the US Army during the Vietnam war, and at sea as a sailor, among early days of career. The trajectory catches one unawares.

It took Janaki and Whitaker nearly five years to put the book together. It was no single moment or incident, rather the conversations that the naturalist had with acquaintances and friends — sometimes over a glass of beer — who incessantly ask about what shaped his early life, growing up, and his time in Agumbe, that led to the idea of an autobiography.

Whitaker says, “I guess people just got sick of me telling an individual story, they said, ‘we wanna hear it all’.” His early years, sometimes in astonishingly vivid detail, thus came alive.

The details make one wonder about how well documented Whitaker’s childhood years were. “Actually, my mom [Dorris Norden] can be blamed for a lot of it because she was wonderful! The main person who shaped my worldview was my mother. She saved so many of my early writings, like the letters I sent home from school, narrating the various experiences I have had. Before she passed, she handed over everything she collected over the years. And it’s not only the letters that I wrote home, but the letters I wrote to my cousins in America. They were very fascinated by my life in India,” he recalls.