Butterfly Man's latest flutter all set to create colourful waves

Enthusiasm of Issac Kehimkar, regarded as the Butterfly man of India, is hard to contain. His book, Butterflies of India, is all set for launch and he humbly admits that he owes it to the active butterfly community on the web, which ensured that he managed to get images of some rare butterflies, including the magnificent and rarest of rare Kaisar-i-Hind.

The book that will be published by Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) is first of its kind that covers more than 1,000 species and subspecies of butterflies with photographs clicked on field and has about 1,800 photographs. It also includes several endemic and rare species of butterflies as well as key information about every species, including identification techniques and their habitats.

Speaking about the awareness and interest that has grown regarding butterflies in India, he said: "When I was working on my first book that came out in 2008, there were not many with keen interest in butterflies and very few groups existed that shared images and information on important sightings. Even digital photography was not as developed as it is today. However, the situation has changed now completely. There are butterfly groups for every city, state and even places that are butterfly hotspot and hundreds of butterfly images are uploaded on social media every day and experts are tagged for helping in identification," shares Kehimkar adding that thanks to these groups one can stay updated about so many species as well as their geographical location.

The SIES graduate, who joined BNHS as volunteer in 1978, shared that this book has several rare butterflies, including Bhutan glory found in North East, Dragaontails from Namdapha along with butterflies like Malabar banded peacock, a subspecies of Paris peacock, which are endemic and found along Western ghats.

"It also includes the Andaman Swordtails and Andaman Clubtail that are endemic to Anadamans. Thanks to Monsoon Jyoti Gogoi, a butterfly expert, who put me in touch with Tage Kano, a nature lover and the first person to have photographed Kaisar-i-Hind alive for the first time in India at Arunachal Pradesh," said Kehimkar.

Ask him about the Gladeye bushbrown butterfly adorning the cover of his book, he explained that though it is not a 'colourful' butterfly as expected for the cover of a book the intention of using this butterfly with a striking 'eye' on its wing was to highlight the Western Ghats. "This butterfly is endemic to Western Ghats and we all know that this rich biodiversity hotspot is threatened. Hence, through this cover I also wanted to raise awareness about our very own Western Ghats," he said.

In fact, Kehimkar shared that what made his second book on butterflies even more special was that he could use images of butterflies clicked by his friends from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan as these were butterflies that were common to India.

"It was again through social media that I connected with Ackram Awan from Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Having liked his image of a butterfly that is common to India, I wanted to use it and he immediately shared it with me and the point we wanted to make out of this was that for people who love butterflies borders does not matter," he said, adding that he also made it a point to ensure that all photographers were given an honorarium.

Interestingly, he also shared that it was after his accident in 2010 where he was left with serious injuries to his leg that he thought of starting the work on another book. "I was on bed rest for several months and this was like a blessing in disguise as I started my revision on the book and after seeing that there are several more new butterflies reported and images are available I began my quest and finally the book that will serve easy for on field understanding of butterflies is now ready," he concluded.