Image and Narrative contributed by Raju Kosraju, India
My father Dr. Reddiah Kosaraju was a Scientist with a PhD degree in Marine Biology from University of Liverpool (1950s). He was a happy go lucky man, a wonderful person to know, and generous to the core. Over the years he helped quite a number of Indian students who had no monetary support, by sponsoring their education. He was a good swimmer as well as an outstanding chess player and won the Open All England Chess Championship in 1958.
After a MSc degree from Agra University (standing second) in 1955 with ‘Fish and Fisheries’ as a special subject, he became a Research Assistant in SERI in Dehradun, and then worked as a lecturer teaching Zoology in Andhra Christian College, Guntur. Thereafter he went to study in Liverpool, England on his own, and completed a PhD degree in record time of only a year and half. He discovered new breeding grounds of edible bivalves (marine mollusks) in U.K and his works on ‘Parasitic cope pods of Bivalves’ were featured in several reputed foreign journals. He then returned to India and joined as a Pool Officer in Annamalai University.
In 1960, after a posting as Zoologist in Shillong, he was transferred to Southern Regional Station, ZSI (Zoological Survery of India), Madras (now Chennai), as officer-in-charge. During this tenure, he added several specimens of birds and mammals, and laid the foundation for a scientific museum at the Station. In view of his expertise on corals and coral reefs of India, he also fulfilled a special task of locating corals of medicinal importance around the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, in 1977. In the Andamans, he spent considerable time with the local aboriginal tribes, the Onges.
The Onges were semi-nomadic and were dependent on hunting and gathering for food. Till 1998, the nomadic hunter-gatherers hardly had any contact with the outside world. My father first became friends with the Onge tribal chief of Little Andaman Islands by exchanging his cigarettes and tin food, for coconut water. But there was also danger around. A grounded freight ship from Hong Kong on the North Sentinel Island reef had reported ‘small black naked men’ carrying spears and arrows, and building boats on the beach. They were suspected to be cannibals from Neatorama, the Forbidden Island. No one knows what language they spoke or what they called themselves – they had never allowed anyone to get close enough to find out. The outside world calls them the “Sentineli” or the “Sentinelese” after the island. Apparently, once when a National Geographic film crew lingered too long in 1975, a Sentinelese warrior shot the director in the thigh with a bow and arrow, and then stood on the beach laughing at his accomplishment. My father lived amidst dangerous situations but did not make excuses and never raised objections, he ended up doing a brilliant job.
Time went on and so did several other postings and promotions, and soon it became clear that my father was overworked. He passed away suddenly on January 30, 1988. Even as an authority on corals and coral reef development, much of his expertise, discoveries and observations on Corals remained untapped and died along with him. At my age, my father had already lived in three countries, travelled the world, and had innumerable adventures – all without a guidebook. My dream in life is to make my father proud of the man I become.
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