The Elephant Chaser's Daughter

You can feel Shipa's gratitude, sincerity, and a multitude of emotions she has endured throughout her life's journey so far. Her writing style is candid and sweetly descriptive, that you can very quickly feel the essence of her world. I fell in love with Shilpa after reading this - her reflective nature gave me a powerful perspective on my own privilege and on how we should spend life purposefully.Shilpa you are a big talent. Keep on writing. The world needs to hear your voice. This was such an enjoyable read!

The contents are well summed up by other reviewers. This is a fabulous book, especially so for someone whose first language is not English. I could not put it down. My only complaint is that the shifts back and forth in time were a bit jarring and confusing. However, once I figured out what time periods were being addressed, the flow was smooth again. The author's descriptions were first-rate.I applaud this young woman's exceptional courage in self-revelation and can't wait to read her next book. Highly recommended!

I watched Shilpa Raj from a young age to college on the Netflix series, 'Daughter's of Destiny '. Dr. Abraham George became rich in America and returned to India, where he was born, to start a school for children of the lowest caste,He chose only one child from a family to educate, 12 girls and 12 boys, all at age 4 so that he could direct their lives in a positive way. They were housed at the school, Shanti Bhavan, under the care of Aunties in a dorm like setting, boys and girls separate, The necessites of food, clothing, shoes, everything a child needs, including affection and entertainment was provided and only English could be spoken , so the 4 year olds learned it quickly. Shilpa was one of these children and she delves into the poverty that many Indians must endure due to the class system. She had a difficult time at the school for years but missed it when she returned home twice yearly for Christmas and summer vacation.

The Elephant Chaser's Daughter is a brilliant story that reveals the abject poverty being experienced by millions of people throughout India and hundreds of millions of people worldwide. This book describes the author's journey through a K-12 education program estabished by a philanthropist to show that children from impoverised backgrounds can succeed the same as affluent students. All graduating seniors go to college and then to good-paying jobs. This starts a virtuous cycle as they use their incomes to improve the lives of their families, neighbors and the broader community. It is a beautiful story well worth reading.

If you’ve seen the documentary on Shanti Bhavan, then this book is a must read. Even if you haven’t seen the documentary, the book is compelling. Shilpa’s personal story of growing up in two worlds and how she navigates the two will touch your heart.

Explains the fulfillment of the children who are taken from their homes of poverty and malfunction to a school to help them reach their potential.

Thru education, you see things differently from what you think and what you know. Education really changes everything. Kudos to Dr. George and his family for taking on this huge responsibility. Bless their hearts!! And what a great luck for these kids who were given a chance at life. And good for Shilpa for driving forward despite the challenges that she had to go through. Through this book, she gave us a perspective of what it was like to live in 2 different worlds (their family and Shanti Bhavan) at a very young age and not lose the hope and chance of getting the educational opportunity that was given to them. Her own life story in this book and their stories that was shown on Netflix’s Daughters of Destiny pinched my heart. As a mother, my heart ached for both the parents and for these children for going out there alone in an unknown world at a very young age. At 4 years old, I used to carry my son to his own bed after falling asleep in my bed and I cuddled him when he would wake up in the morning. I don’t know that I would have allowed my 4 year old son to go someplace and with someone that I don’t know. This a great book and great story. If you haven’t seen the Daughters of Destiny, make an effort to watch it on Netflix. It’s as heartbreaking and as good as this book.

I'm going to be little less effusive with praise than the other reviewers. The book wasn't particularly well-written and became repetitive. But I'm giving it 4 stars because the message is important. First, it brings recognition to the good works of Shanti Bhavan and the selfless Abraham George, who is attempting to raise the education level (and thus the future) of his impoverished nation. While we shouldn't need to read a memoir to know that too many women in India are powerless to control their lives and destinies, the book does bring heightened awareness to the fact that many live as nothing more than slaves. Shilpa was extremely honest and for that I give her tremendous credit. I think she realizes what an enormous gift she has been given, purely by serendipity. But she must also realize that the gift comes with responsibility. Not just to give her parents money - but to use her education and new renown to help others like herself break the the binds of caste, poverty, violence and subjugation. She may have to put some of her personal desires on the back burner to help spread the effort that Abraham George is trying to propagate. That was the intent of the school, after all.

I came to this book due to watching the fantastic documentary series "Daughters of Destiny" about the Indian boarding school Shanti Bavhan on Netflix. Since the documentary is 4 hours long, I first wondered if this book would add anything I did not know already. I need not have worried.The book describes the story of one of the girls featured in the documentary in great depth. Shilpa writes about her experiences and feelings with an honesty that astounded and impressed me very much - particularly given her cultural and social background and the possible consequences for her. She is a very courageous writer. I learned a lot not only about her, but also about cultural practices in India and their effects on indivual people.If Shilpa is an example of what kind of academic and social education children receive at Shanti Bavhan, then we need many more Shanti Bavhans not just in India, but all over the world. It seems that this school raises the ideal future leaders: knowledgeable, hard working and goal oriented, but also compassionate, honest, responsible and empathetic.I very much enjoyed reading this book.

Shilpa Raj’s parent’s home is in the village of Thattaguppe, in the Southern part of Karnataka State, India. Her father is an elephant chaser, employed by the government, to help protect the villagers from the elephants who tend to wander in from the surrounding forests, hoping to eat the sugarcane that’s planted on the edge of the forest. Unfortunately, elephants have no idea when to stop eating this luscious crop, so must be scared off by fireworks thanks to these brave men who risk their lives to keep them from causing havoc.Most of the villagers called Dalits, lower-caste or even coolies, work for the landowners, who are part of the upper-castes. They scratch out a barely living wage working in the fields or as domestics in the homes of the landlords. Very few of the villagers read or write. They live in constant debt, and the level of alcoholism and domestic violence is extremely high. Young girls can be “sold off” at an early age to whoever their family chose for them. Villagers supplement their income by making illicit alcohol, which in turn leads to police raids and either arrests or bribes needing to be paid. As a result, none of the villagers can ever expect to raise their status above that of chronically in debt and unable to ever pay off their debts, loaned at exorbitant rates.This was the life that Shilpa had to look forward to until the appearance in the village on 2 November 1997 of “the Blue Jeep” carrying three members of the Shanti Bhavan School. They were in the village to test children to be selected to attend the school that had been opened in August by Dr Abraham George, an Indian-American businessman. His ambition, to fight social injustice and alleviate poverty through education.Shilpa’s father insisted that Shilpa was tested as a candidate. He greeted the news that his four-year-old daughter had the ability to not only gain an excellent education and be the first member of his family to do so but also, thanks to this education, would be able to change the fortunes of the family, thus fulfilling the very reason Dr George had opened the school. Her mother and grandmother fought his decision, her mother even threatening to commit suicide if Shilpa attended the school, a boarding school, situated in Baliganapalli, Tamil Nadu, but “Appa” (father) stood firm, and Shilpa left this village to get an education, only returning home for a couple of months each year to visit.This is a very moving story, told in Shilpa’s beautiful descriptive words of leaving home in rags, and finding herself through education.Like all pupils, it is a shock to Shilpa’s system when she first entered the school, to find beautifully laid out dormitories, with proper beds and bathrooms as home in the village is simply a shack with all the family sleeping in close confinement to each other on mats. Toilets and bathrooms are unknown as well, so it wasn’t easy to adapt to the two lives she finds herself living. One as just another child in a poverty-stricken village and the other as one of the few selected from a village to attend school. It takes a lot of rebellious behaviour and eventually self-discipline to finally come to terms and accept her education and the help that the school offers.I had obviously heard of the caste system in India but had never read anything about it until now. It is racism of the worst kind, and it is only thanks to the dedication and vision of someone like Dr George and his school, Shanti Bhavan (in Hindi: "haven of peace") that pupils who are selected to attend it go on to higher education and university.Shilpa Raj, in a way thanks to her very dysfunctional home life and witness to so much alcoholism and domestic abuse, now has a Master’s Degree in Psychological Counselling.Shilpa, you are a gifted author, and I hope that it won’t be too long before we see more of your work.Treebeard.Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I bought this book after watching Daughters of Destiny on Netflix and visiting the Shantih Bhavan website hoping to find out more about what happened to the people featured in the documentary. Initially I wondered if the positive reviews were, however kindly, rather patronising. I also wondered whether the book would tell me much I hadn’t learned from the documentary.Wow, was I wrong.The Elephant Chaser’s Daughter is well written, fascinating and the author is searingly honest about herself.The book describes the brutal reality of being born into a poor family in village in rural India, and the author’s complex and challenging upbringing. She is incredibly honest and insightful about the ways that this affected her and led her to isolate herself from friends and at times made her difficult to be around. She also evokes the Indian countryside and lifestyle beautifully.The book also explored the conflict between the lives of Shantih Bhavan children at school and at home, and the pressure on them not only to cope with this pressure, but the expectation of achieving great things and supporting their families. I did wonder whether this was almost a new form of indebtedness.There is a lot more to Shilpa’s story, and indeed the reality of poverty and ill-treatment of girls and women, than was shown on Daughters of Destiny. I found the Elephant Chaser’s Daughter so much better written than a Sunday Times best-seller that I read recently.

A girl from the slums gets a chance to break free from generations of endemic poverty and slum life. Then has to straddle between two lifestyles for 14 years. There is something subtle hidden here and I watched the Netflix documentary which only confirmed my uncomfortableness.Her future will be dominated by the promise made of herself to others before she could actually understand what that meant, as she was a child. The dogma is oft-repeated Grateful gratitude and sacrifice is what all the children of Shanti Bavran are expected to come out with. God help you if you deviate from that when you leave! The founder of Shanti Bavran and his son are there to constantly remind you that you are chosen He has made a financial sacrifice and so must you. Not just your family but your entire village and caste have expectations to reap benefits from your future endeavours. No room for individual life plans. Your life is not for you it is for the benefit of the community. Must be a cultural thing. God help you if you want to raise a family, move to the moon and stay indoors. THAT'S NOT IN THE PLAN.Having said that. I was educated by the story. Delighted that this girl got an education and has a promising future but despise the relentless and intense pressure put on her and all the other children who attend the school, to lift not only her direct her family but also community. One reviewer here on Amazon.com actually called her selfish! These children are not allowed for one moment to be selfish. It's as though they are "bred" only to feed some insatiable demon! Weird and uncomfortable. I am sure some of these children will have mental issues in the future. Read and decide for yourself. Smh!The style, grammar of the text is a wee bit out of date possibly too formal like a 1960s English school text and occasionally repetitive. A better Editor could have tidied this up.

The idealistic move from Dr George has turned out to be just the opposite of serendipity. He aimed to do good. It turned out to be a confusing state for some children who received his help, especially at a point where this project was at the brink of collapse. The book brought out many issues of: remote rural communities, girl children, man woman relationships, casteism, colonial influences, spread of Christianity and transitional stages, child psychology and many many more...touching each of them at a depth which is not enough. At times some issues were focussed on more than necessary. Nevertheless, I read the book with a heavy heart, realising only in the end that the elephant chaser is Dr George.