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Falconry in the Land of the Sun by Sirdar Mohamed Osman Imagine, within the deepest sanctums of your sportsman’s, naturalist’s, or, to be sure, your falconer’s heart, mind and soul, the greatest and grandest adventure of all lifetimes that you would want to be a part of. It would surely include sheer outright pleasure, passion, beauty, grace, comfort, as well as horror, fright, discord, discomfort, loss and threat to life and limb to truly be meaningful. It may feel like a kind of roller coaster ride in nature that never lets up, and would certainly have the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, magnified, over and over. What if I tell you, to be sure, that this dream could never live up to the reality of the tale that Sirdar Mohamed Osman has recollected into his autobiographical account of his life in “Falconry in the Land of the Sun?” Within the peregrinations of famous people, such as Colonel Biddulph, Delme-Radcliffe, D.C., absolutely amazing stories of lives of high adventure. These seem like small potatoes in Idaho (i.e., pale in comparison) after reading the recitation of Mr. Osman’s life history as viewed along the lines of the falconry he practiced throughout his life since 1925. He has done what most others only write about. The experiences related are mostly first person, and thus, take on a clarity possible only when one tells his own tale. The 7-inch by 10-inch basic quarto-size book, subtitled, “The Memoirs of an Afghan Falconer,” is printed on 80-pound enamel text stock (it feels and smells like a really good book should), sewn in glued binding, bound in forest green cloth hard cover with the title and subtitle gold stamped in the cloth. A dark green paper dust wrapper is a story in itself. A background portrait of the ruling court of Afghanistan at about 1878, about a year before the British government exiled the family to India, shows Mr. Osman’s great grandfather and his grandfather in a posed court picture wearing the clothing of the time and country. An inset photo of Mr. Osman shows him with a changeable hawk eagle on glove, with Mr. Osman dressed in a European-style suit, complete with tie and sweater vest, not to mention a tam-o-shanter hat cocked upon his hand. This wrapper pretty well sums up the then-and-now aspect of the tale in this book, as both eras are pictorially, graphically and verbally illuminated within so as to give a complete visual mind’s-eye understanding of all recited in the book. Mr. Osman creates a mental panorama of sights, sounds, and all other senses by skillful, knowledgeable writing. He is well-languaged (keep your dictionary close at hand, reader, as you will need it), and well read (his recall of old manuscripts and literature is huge, and maybe complete!). By carefully picking his vocabulary and calling up absolutely amazing quotes and sources, the story entertains and fascinates as well as informs all who read regardless of interest. Readership will extend to those with an interest beyond falconry! The book is organized taxonomically (thanks Jeff P. for helping me get this word right) by raptor exposes and the stories of his life fit in by what comes to his mind when involved with a particular raptor. This arrangement directs the main emphasis of the book on his part to biology, specifically raptor biology and how it relates to falconry. But the eyewitness descriptions of place and time cannot help but give the tale a unique whole otherworldliness—one of the natural world in northwest India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, at a time of major change in the mid-to-late 20th century. This otherworld that is crossed over into through the vector of the author’s deep personal interest in the local raptors and the practice of falconry is totally understood and expressly explained as only a trained and educated naturalist and biologist could. It is the picture of this otherworldliness that some of us wish still existed, and comes to life again through Mr. Osman’s book. In truth, what also actually unfolds before our eyes, through his printed word, is a nonchronological life history of a man and his environs, which will make every true-to-heart falconer green with envy! This reviewer could only hope to have such a life! The closest I can come is to know that he went to a mountain retreat at 6,000 feet at a place called Mussoorie, India, for a part of his life; and I left Missouri, U.S.A. for the mountains at Ft. Collins, Boulder and Walden, Colorado at 6,000 feet for three years at the time when I started falconry in 1964. Yes, I am reaching, but am hoping desperately still to have life experiences as great as Mr. Osman’s! His tale may be bigger than anybody today can hope to achieve, and thus, all of us will only get to live it vicariously through his words. As one fellow from Missouri to another from Mussoorie, I can still strive to reach the benchmark of life experiences Mr. Osman has set with his life and detailed in this fine book. As for the falconry experience shared through the words of this book, I thought, at first, that maybe this book should be considered a volume for the advanced aficionado wishing to enlarge his experience base within the art of falconry. On second reflection, I’m not so sure. The minute-to-minute, day-by-day dissertation on the training of a goshawk is right on, and the most practical for even the novice looking for insight. All through the book are little bechins, or tidbits, of incredible falconry knowledge of both basic know-how and of far-reaching ideas that will qualify as advanced original thinking. When one has gathered the knowledge of six generations of family falconers, most of whom were royal rulers of Afghanistan, some truly amazing wisdom of how-to-do cannot be ignored, at either the beginner’s level or the old master prefector level. All will learn something useful of falconry within this book. This reviewer believes Mr. Osman has been living a life doing falconry in one of the most exciting places in the world throughout his lifetime, including now. One of the world’s greatest terrorists is said to currently be somewhere within S.M. Osman’s world of experience. The Arab world still does a major part of their hawking in this part of the world including buying hawks at Lahore. Some of the current situations Mr. Osman alludes to leads one to believe he is still somewhat at political risk. And his world has gone through major catastrophic damage, environmentally and politically. In all of this is a simple man who loves all falconry, and can clearly express this in print. This is a first-class read. Do experience it.
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