For 35 years, Joyshram Basumatary roamed the depths of Manas National Park, a World Heritage Site since 1985, killings rhinos, elephants, buffalos, tigers, deer and numerous other animals. But now Basumatary and many others like him are fighting to protect what they had set out to destroy— a paradise on earth.

This has been one of the most remarkable nature conservation stories worldwide, as the once-enemies of the jungle are now its fierce protectors in this famed wildlife spot in Assam straddling the borders of Bhutan.
This real-life tale, as well as an apocryphal one of the “Manas Kanya”— the Daughter of Manas— who lives with a herd of elephants deep in the jungles, form part of this well-produced book which combines storytelling with fact-sharing to bring out a composite and interesting picture of Manas.

If the words in this book written by Guwahati-based journalist Sivavish Thakur give nuggets of information about this nature hot spot (which has been virtually revived from the brink of total destruction, no thanks to the depredation by poachers as well as Bodo militants), Dushyant Parasher’s photographs of the flora and fauna provide enough visual treat for readers to lure them to visit this magnificent nature spot running along the Manas river.

“Somebody once said of Manas that the Earth must have looked like it before man set his foot on the planet.” This sentence sets the mood of the book at the very beginning as it takes the reader through a journey of the national park.

While all the required facts and figures are there, the book goes beyond all this and quite successfully recreates the ambience of the area by detailing the legends, the myths— and most importantly— the demographic profile of the people living around it, particularly how many former poachers have now become saviours of the park.
However the author, for some unexplained reason, has left out the depredation of the region during the height of Bodo insurgency in the 1990s— a period during which Manas suffered maximum damage.

This book, which strives to be something more than just an essential tourism guide, is the first endeavour of LBS Publications, one of Assam’s oldest publishing houses, under its newly-launched Red River Nature Heritage Series. And if this book is any indication, it will be the beginning of many such ventures to bring out the exotic natural richness of the North-East.