For the driver, Col John Felix Wakefield, the scene was part of his everyday life. As the Resident Director of the Jungle Lodges and Resorts organization at the Kabini, he has a unique rapport with the animals, in the forests on the banks of the Kabini river. He is Papa John, for the environmentalists, tourists and his co-employees. Perhaps the wild animals in the area also must be calling him, in their own language, affectionately by the same name. He knows them personally. One leopard he calls Christopher, and a female elephant Belly Buttons. He pulls up the local Forest Ranger if he finds less salt in the salt lick pits in the forest. He boasts, " I am a lucky man, as I am paid for doing what I like."

The family chart of Papa makes an interesting reading. It shows his descent through Robert Barclay, apologist of the Quakers and his inter-connection with Elizabeth Fry, the prison reformer, Sir Francis Galton, the founder of eugenics, T F Buxton, the emancipator of the slaves and John Nicholson, the "hero" of Delhi.

But the high connections least bother him. A down-to-earth, practical man, he is more worried about the delicate health of the baby elephant, whom he found in herd banks of the Kabini river the previous day.

Papa was born in 1916 in Gaya, Bihar. His long and intimate kingship with the jungles and wildlife of India began in his early years, under the guidance of his father, who worked with the Maharajah of Tikari.

Young John used to regularly accompany his father in his hunts. At the age of nine, John shot a leopard in the company of his father. The very next year, his father made him shoot a tigress.