Salim Ali - Early Life

Early Life

Salim Ali was born into a Sulaimani Bohra Muslim family of Bombay, the ninth and youngest child. His father Moizuddin died when he was one year old and his mother Zeenat-un-nissa died when he was three. The children were brought up by his maternal uncle, Amiruddin Tyabji, and childless aunt, Hamida Begum, in a middle-class household in Khetwadi, Mumbai. Another uncle was Abbas Tyabji, well known Indian freedom fighter. Salim was introduced to the serious study of birds by W. S. Millard, secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), who identified an unusually coloured sparrow that young Salim had shot for sport with his toy airgun. Millard identified it as a Yellow-throated Sparrow, and showed Salim around the Society's collection of stuffed birds. Millard lent Salim a few books including Eha's Common birds of Bombay, encouraged Salim to make a collection of birds and offered to train him in skinning and preservation. Millard also introduced young Salim to (later Sir) Norman Boyd Kinnear, the first paid curator at the BNHS, who later provided help from the British Museum. In his autobiography, The Fall of a Sparrow Ali notes the Yellow-throated Sparrow event as the turning point of his life that led him into ornithology, an unusual career choice, especially for an Indian in those days. His early interest was in books on hunting in India and he became interested in sport-shooting, encouraged by the hunting interests of his foster-father Amiruddin. Shooting contests were often held in the neighbourhood in which he grew and among his playmates was Iskandar Mirza, a distant cousin who was a particularly good marksman and who went on in later life to become the first President of Pakistan.

Salim went to primary school at Zanana Bible Medical Mission Girls High School at Girgaum along with two of his sisters and later to St. Xavier's College in Bombay. Around the age of 13 he suffered from chronic headaches, making him drop out of class frequently. He was sent to Sind to stay with an uncle who had suggested that the dry air might help and on returning back after such breaks in studies, he barely managed to pass the matriculation exam of the Bombay University in 1913.