Travels on my Elephant

by Mark Shand

  Travels On My Elephant

  MARK SHAND

  For Clio and Tara, one small, one big, both loved

  This reprint is dedicated to my wonderful daughter Ayesha

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  1 Elephant Headquarters

  2 An Original Elephant

  3 Bandobast

  4 Paint, Pujas and Pandits

  5 The Black Pagoda

  6 In the Tracks of the King of Bliss

  7 Touch-me-not

  8 An Angry Tusker

  9 Firinghee Mahout

  10 Tara’s Tantrum

  11 Death in the Jungle

  12 Double Dipper

  13 Full Control Ceremony

  14 McCluskiegunge

  15 The Land of the Buddha

  16 The Mighty Ganga

  17 The Haathi Bazaar

  18 Mela Madness

  19 Swept Away

  20 Elephant Trading

  21 God’s Will

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Prologue

  ‘AM I RIGHT in assuming that you want to buy an elephant?’ the voice from New Delhi shouted down the telephone to me in London. Even through the hiss and static of the long-distance connection I could detect the apprehension in the voice.

  ‘Yes,’ I shouted back.

  I was restless again. The last time I had been restless, I ended up being pursued by cannibals in Indonesia. This time, I had decided on a quiet jaunt across India on an elephant. This idea evolved from a drawing I had discovered while clearing out my grandmother’s house after she had died. The drawing was of an infuriated male elephant about to charge a little Indian mahout or elephant driver. I took it with me and forgot about it – at least I thought I had.

  A few days later I opened a book on India. Staring jovially at me from the page was a bewhiskered gentleman, wearing a dashing plumed hat, sitting nonchalantly astride an elephant. It was Tom Coryat, the eccentric Englishman who travelled to India overland in 1615, on foot, on twopence a day. When he reached the court of the great Moghul Emperor Jahangir, he wrote: ‘I have rid upon an elephant since I came to this court, determining one day (by God’s leave) to have my picture expressed in my next booke sitting upon an elephant.’ I was now obsessed. With or without God’s leave I was determined to have my picture expressed in my next book sitting upon an elephant.

  I rushed to the library where I read a few classics on elephants. From the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, I received sound information:

  The great elephant has by nature qualities which rarely occur among men, namely probity, prudence and a sense of justice. They are mild in disposition and are conscious of dangers. If one of them should come upon a man alone who has lost his way, he puts him back peacefully in the path from which he has wandered. It is so peaceable that its nature does not allow it willingly to injure creatures less powerful than itself. If it should chance to meet a drove or flock of sheep, it puts them aside with its trunk so as to avoid trampling upon them with its feet; and it never injures others unless it is provoked. They have a great dread of the grunting of pigs and they delight in rivers. They hate rats. Flies are much attracted by their smell and as they settle on their backs they wrinkle up their skin deepening its tight folds and so kill them.

  How could I go wrong? It seemed I had chosen a most practical and agreeable travelling companion.

  Now I was telephoning a friend in New Delhi. ‘Yes, I want to buy an elephant,’ I shouted to him, as if this was the most usual of requests.

  ‘You must be mad,’ his voice echoed. ‘Still, I suppose it’s possible. India is full of elephants, but what are you going to do with it when you leave? I don’t see your parents taking kindly to it residing in Sussex. Think of their beautiful garden. Why don’t you rent an elephant?’

  ‘Rent one?’ I yelled. ‘It’s not a car.’

  ‘All right, I’ll see what I can do.’ I could hear the resignation in his voice. ‘Meanwhile I suggest you contact Pepita. I think she has an elephant.’

  ‘Thank you so much. Goodbye.’

  ‘Mark,’ he shouted frantically. ‘There’s just one other thing. Where are you going to go on it?’

  ‘Well, um … er …’ I stuttered feebly. ‘To be frank, I haven’t really given it much thought yet.’ In fact, I had not thought about it at all. I just imagined myself climbing aboard and setting off.

  Pepita Seth is an unconventional English woman, married to one of India’s finest actors. A scholar and talented photographer, she spent ten years in Kerala documenting the religious rituals of southern India. There she became obsessed with the elephant that so enriches Kerala’s ceremonies and festivals. Now she lives in Delhi. I wrote asking if I could buy her elephant. Pepita replied promptly. Her writing paper ‘ELEPHANT OWNERS’ ASSOCIATION’ announced what surely must be the most exclusive club in the world: No, I could not buy her elephant, she wrote indignantly. ‘On the other hand I know where you can get one. The Sonepur Mela in Bihar, the world’s largest animal fair. Elephants, cattle and horses have been sold there for centuries. I went three years ago and must have seen three hundred elephants. It happens sometime at the end of November, depending on the full moon.’

  It was now the beginning of August and the Mela was not for another four months. I couldn’t wait that long. I decided to leave for India immediately certain that I would find an elephant once I got there. After all, I now had a goal – a place to sell it. I just had to find one and ride to the fair.

  1

  Elephant Headquarters

  INDIA SHOWS WHAT she wants to show, as if her secrets are guarded by a wall of infinite height. You try to climb the wall – you fall; you fetch a ladder – it is too short; but if you are patient a brick will loosen and then another. Once through, India embraces you, but that was something I had yet to learn.

  When I arrived in Delhi it was my ladder that was too short. I wanted everything immediately. The monsoons had broken. Black, swollen clouds brought the usual rain, humidity and chaos. Roads were awash, taxis broke down, peacocks screamed. I perspired, worried and developed prickly heat – and I had only been there a few days.

  Inevitably I consulted a fortune-teller. ‘You are married, yes,’ he stated wisely.

  ‘No,’ I replied.

  ‘But you are having a companion, I think.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are most fortunate, sir. Soon you will be having another one. I am seeing many problems. But do not worry, sir,’ he added brightly. ‘They will only be getting worse.’

  With characteristic generosity my friend had put his house at my disposal. It was to become ‘elephant headquarters’ and the mantle of co-ordinator had settled, however unwillingly, upon his shoulders. In the following week his elegant dining-room was converted into an operations area fit for a world war. Maps and papers littered the table, kit bags, medical supplies, mosquito nets, tents and food rations occupied corners. People dropped in and out. The telephone never stopped ringing and his staff worked overtime producing a continuous chain of refreshments. Game wardens, wildlife officials and forest officers, retired shikaris, politicians, journalists, government servants, ministers and just plain friends were contacted – all important people with tight schedules who went out of their way to help. Undeservedly, however, the bricks had already been loosened for me.

  ‘Everybody’s so kind,’ I remarked to my friend incredulously.

  ‘It is not you that they’re worried about, it’s the elephant.’

  In this merry-go-round of madness I sloshed
from office to office pestering people. I spent a morning discussing the reproduction cycles of the gharial, the Indian freshwater crocodile, and another looking at slides of seabirds. I was offered a camel and found myself buying a jade green parrot from a mobile bird seller, which promptly bit me. I listened carefully to mercurial advice on ancient routes and less carefully to lectures about pilgrimages and migrations affected by lunar and solar cycles. I heard about the great temples and festivals I would see, the jungles I would travel through and the tribals that I would encounter. ‘And elephants?’ I would eventually enquire hopefully.

  ‘India is like an elephant,’ I was told. ‘She moves slowly.’

  At last a vital brick fell out. Through my friend I met an important bureaucrat who had a deep knowledge of wildlife and, more important, was an expert on elephants.

  ‘Orissa, the old kingdom of Kalinga,’ he said, studying the map I had spread before him, ‘is where you should go. For centuries the rulers paid their tributes in elephants. They were known as Gajpati, the Lords of Elephants. In fact,’ he continued, ‘you will almost certainly be retracing some ancient elephant route. You tell me that you are ending the journey at the Sonepur Mela in Bihar.’

  ‘It was just an idea …’

  ‘Well, where did those elephant tributes go? To Pataliputra, the old capital of India, or Patna as it is known today. Sonepur is a few miles north of Patna, across the Ganga. Now,’ he paused for a moment. ‘In India every great pilgrimage or journey begins or ends at a temple or place of worship.’ He smiled. ‘In your case particularly an auspicious start would be of great importance. You might consider the great Sun temple at Konarak, the Black Pagoda. The main structure is supported by a carved frieze of two thousand elephants and the north side is guarded by two colossal war elephants which are so lifelike that, on moonlit nights, visitors often mistake them for the real thing.’

  I now had a complete journey more or less mapped out, but still no vehicle. ‘And an elephant, sir?’ I enquired with diffidence.

  ‘Your best bet is the zoo. I’ll give you a letter of introduction to the director of the Nandankanan Biological Park. He’s a helpful man and runs one of our better establishments. If anyone can find you an elephant, he will. Now, whatever you do, don’t buy a Muckna.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I replied firmly, assuming more knowledge than I possessed. Obviously he did not believe me. He explained that a Muckna is a male elephant without tusks that suffers from a kind of inferiority complex and is usually exceedingly dangerous.

  ‘Like a sort of eunuch,’ I suggested brightly.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he replied, looking at me oddly. ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Of course, you will need a mahout and a charkaatiya.’

  I must have looked perplexed.

  ‘A charkaatiya,’ he explained patiently, ‘is a man who cuts fodder for the elephant. Its daily consumption can be as much as two hundred kilos. In certain areas, fodder will not be available, so you will have to buy it. It will be expensive. And,’ he continued, ‘it might be a good idea to get hold of a jeep. You can probably hire one in Orissa. You’ll need back up.’

  I swallowed hard. My entourage was growing. The idea of climbing on and setting off vanished. I would now command a small army.

  His information was limitless. He advised me on the different types of howdahs, the price of elephants, their feeding habits, medical care, emergency tactics, mahouts and elephant commands (alarmingly there were eighty-four of them). Before I left, he gave me the letter and told me that when one is buying an elephant, there are five points to look for that one doesn’t look for when buying a wife, and vice versa. Unfortunately, he could not remember what they were.

  Back at the house I found my friend pacing the garden nervously.

  ‘I’m off to Orissa,’ I announced happily.

  ‘I know,’ he sighed. He was born in Orissa and had spent his childhood there.

  ‘Well, don’t look so miserable. You are about to get rid of me. Anyway you should be happy I am going to visit your home.’

  ‘That’s what I am worried about,’ he retorted testily. ‘You are bound to get into trouble, or else get lost. You must take somebody with you. What about the language? How on earth are you going to understand anything?’

  I had become so obsessed with finding an elephant that I had not given this a thought. Two or three months of sign language could become confusing, in fact, unbearable. ‘What should I do?’ I asked anxiously.

  ‘I think I know a man. He is a photographer. This kind of folly will appeal to him.’

  ‘When can I meet him?’

  ‘In about ten minutes,’ he announced smugly. ‘I have invited him for lunch.’

  Ten minutes later a distinguished, well-built man, sporting a full moustache and wearing Rayban sunglasses, loped into the garden. He took off his glasses. ‘You!’ he barked fiercely. Puzzled I looked around me. The garden was empty. He then roared with laughter and held out his hand. ‘I’m Aditya Patankar. We have met before – at Holi. But I do not think that you would remember me.’

  I cringed at the mention of the Spring Festival of Holi, a wild, bacchanalian affair where people smear each other with coloured powders. Pulverised by traditional opium concoctions I had passed out in a fountain. He won’t want to come, I thought.

  ‘I don’t know much about elephants,’ Aditya said, to my surprise. ‘As a child I was taken by my father to see the elephants in the stables at my cousin’s palace in Gwalior. These elephants were used for ceremonial occasions and for the tiger shoots. About one hundred years ago the ruling Maharaja hoisted two of the great beasts on to the roof of the palace to ensure that the ceiling would withstand the stupendous weight of two Venetian chandeliers he wished to install. But tell me about your journey …’

  Over lunch I weaved a beguiling tale of a well-planned expedition.

  ‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ he said with a smile, ‘but I will come. There is another reason. You see I’m a Maratha – my ancestors, of whom I’m intensely proud, formed a superb fighting force, and were reputed to have invented guerrilla warfare. Their barbaric reputation alone was enough to strike terror into the heart of India. Both Orissa and Bihar suffered from their swords. It will be interesting to retrace some of their exploits.’

  I realised I was extremely fortunate. Already I liked this straightforward man with his loud voice and laughing eyes. We were an unlikely pair, I thought to myself – an Indian nobleman and an errant Englishman, thrown together by a whim, like some mad nineteenth-century expedition, except the quest was not for a lost city or a hidden treasure, but for an elephant.

  Two days later we flew to Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa.

  2

  An Original Elephant

  THE LONG ARM of coincidence, in which travellers are often held, found the director of the zoo – the very man for whom I had been given a letter of introduction – travelling on the same flight. There were no elephants that he knew of for sale in Orissa, he told us sympathetically. In fact he himself was looking for elephants both for his own establishment and for a temple. He then suggested we try Madras. ‘In the meantime visit my zoo. See the white tigers and the kangaroos that have just arrived from Australia.’

  ‘Well that’s that,’ I said glumly after we returned to our seats. ‘We might as well catch the next flight back to Delhi.’ I turned to Aditya, trying to stay calm. ‘What on earth are we going to do?’ He was fast asleep.

  Bhubaneshwar – the city of a thousand temples – was draped in thick black cloud, glistening from the wet kiss of the monsoons. A steamy heat hung in the air. Even the sparrows, those lively occupants of Indian airports, were silent, wilting on top of the announcement speakers.

  At the hotel the receptionist asked politely, ‘Sands, that is your good name?’

  ‘No, it’s Shand.’

  ‘Welcome to the Prachi Hotel, Mr Sands. How long will you be staying?’

  ‘Unti
l I find an elephant.’

  ‘First class,’ he said encouragingly, with a slight inclination of his head.

  We had barely reached the stairs when a room-boy approached us. ‘You are looking for elephants, sir? I have one friend who has many. All sizes. Shall I call him?’

  A few moments later there came a knock at my door, which I flung open to the surprise of an elderly man wearing a smart two-piece polyester safari suit. Behind him the room-boy struggled with a large suitcase.

  ‘My name is Fakir Charan Tripathy,’ the man said recovering his composure, ‘I have elephants.’

  ‘When can we see them?’

  ‘Now, of course, sirs,’ the man replied, opening the suitcase. Inside were rows of elephants made from ivory, ebony and sandalwood.

  ‘Please be making a selection. Finest quality. Most reasonable.’

  Aditya camouflaged his mouth by pulling on his moustache and explained that these would not meet our requirements. The man seemed confused. Then an expression of wonder crept across his face. ‘Aah! You are wanting an o-r-i-g-i-n-a-l elephant.’

  The room-boy said suddenly, ‘I’ve seen many elephants.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Outside my house, sir. Often they are passing. My children love to see them.’ He looked down at his hands in shame. ‘I try to keep my family inside. We are very poor and I cannot afford to give away money or food. Only last week three …’

  ‘Saddhus!’ Aditya exclaimed. ‘They must be saddhus, and they can’t have gone far. They will be stopping at every village and it shouldn’t be difficult to follow their route.’ He turned to me. ‘You see, Mark, the elephant is revered in most parts of India. It represents the elephant-headed deity, Ganesh, our Hindu God of Protection. These elephants are usually ridden by con men masquerading as saddhus, or holy men – a powerful and very lucrative combination. They criss-cross the country, begging, living off the consciences of people much worse off than themselves. Now, you are to stay here. If they see that face of yours the price of an elephant will double. Mr Tripathy, will you come with me?’