About Me — Girish Menon

My shift from software life to tiger trails

The author at the age of 2, with his father’s slides and slide viewer, photographed by E. N. Menon

One of the highlights of my childhood days was the 6th grade geography class in which Miss Elizabeth Master, my geography teacher at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour School in Mumbai, India, would literally take the time and trouble to browse through and handpick specific copies of National Geographic and other similar magazines from the school library.

Later in class, she would show us these awesome colour pictures of our world, places, people, and animals.

I still vividly remember my mind going on vicarious journeys to places where volcanoes erupted, or where I explored the frozen polar regions sitting on a sledge pulled by huskies shouting “mush!” or as I trekked through dark coniferous forests where the sun seldom reached the ground.

Although I looked at those awesome pictures shared by Ms. Master for just a few seconds, they left such indelible imprints on my mind that they lingered on for months and years.

Along with the pictures from school, I had a great collection of old black-and-white photos. My father loved to travel. He took photos with his Konica rangefinder camera during his sojourns across India.

At the tender age of 11, I felt blessed that my father trusted me and allowed me to click…