Robin Banerjee Biography 
Robin Banerjee was an environmentalist, painter, photographer of India who was interested in wildlife. He also had made 32 documentary films. He lived at Golaghat in Assam state. He was born on 12th August 1908 at Baharampur in West Bengal and finished his schooling at Santiniketan. He studied medicine at Calcutta Medical College in Kolkata. Then he continued his studies at Liverpool and at Edinburgh.
He joined Royal Navy at Liverpool in 1937 and worked in World War II. He was involved romantically with a nurse from New Zealand who died after few months. He moved back to India and in 1952 he joined Chabua Tea Estate in Assam as a Chief Medical Officer and later got shifted to Dhansiri Medical Association at Bokakhat.
When he visited Kaziranga National Park, he started to love wildlife and so settled down at Golaghat near Kaziranga. His first documentary film was on the Kaziranga National Park which is an important refuge of Indian Rhinoceros. This was shown on Berlin TV in 1961. This got him recognition as a wildlife film maker at international level. He had received 14 international awards for his works.
He remained a bachelor throughout his life and was called as Uncle Robin in his local community. He donated his land for setting up the local school and health camps. He founded the organization, Kaziranga Wildlife Society to protect the interests of the park. He was awarded Padmashree in 1971 and honorary Doctorate of Science from Assam Agricultural University and Dibrugarh Universithy.
Some of his documentary films are Kaziranga, Wild Life of India, Rhino Capture, A Day at Zoo, Monsoon, Nagaland, Lake Wildness, Flying Reptiles of Indonesia, Through these Doors, Animals of Africa, Underwater, Flowers of Africa, The World of Flamingo, Wild but Friendly, Birds of Africa, My Nature, Alaskan Polar Bear, In the Pacific, So they May Survive, etc.
Due to old age ailments, he died on 6th August 2003. His funeral was attended by Assam Minister of State for Tourism, Ajanta Neog. According to his will and testament, his house in Golaghat has been converted into a natural history museum. It contains large number of photographs, paintings and the other personal collections of Robin Banerjee. This is named as Uncle Robin Museum and is a tourist spot for wildlife lovers.
Published: N/A
Updated: September 26, 2017
