Travels on my Elephant

by Mark Shand

  In the driving rain, we piled into the jeep, pandit and all, to meet them. The old mahout was mortified that he had failed to reach Konarak punctually, but Tara had suddenly become lame in her front right leg and this had delayed them. The accommodating pandit performed a second puja, beside a little pond at the side of the road. This turned out to be a merry affair. As Tara’s decoration had been washed off by the rain, Bhim anointed her forehead in a bright red powder, with the sign of the god Shiva, the Destroyer. The pandit blessed us all by dotting our foreheads with ‘tikkas’ and Tara was garlanded with marigolds and frangipani, which she happily consumed. At one point he blessed her by circling her head with sticks of incense. Thinking it was more food, she shot her trunk through the clouds of scented smoke. The poor pandit, already wary of this large, benevolent elephant, took a step back and fell into the pond.

  It was now auspicious and appropriate for me to ride her, if only for a few yards. With Bhim tugging from on top of Tara and with the help of Aditya, Indrajit and Khusto, and a crowd of amazed local villagers pushing from below, I was hoisted on to her. In my panic I managed to climb aboard the wrong way round and found myself facing Bhim. I carefully turned round, and we set off to great cheers. It was the first time I had ever been on an elephant. I looked down the long drop, and as Tara gained momentum I knew I was going to fall off. Perhaps because I was sitting in the wrong position, her shoulder blades pumped up and down against my backside like pistons, and I felt myself going. Then I felt cold steel against my lower back and Bhim restored my dignity by hooking the curved point of the ‘ankush’ into my underpants.

  In a way I had already started my journey. I felt elated, blessed and unbelievably smug. Leaning down, I kissed her on her large soft ear and whispered that I loved her. My confidence grew as we lumbered down that road. I turned and doffed my panama hat in what I thought was a most cavalier fashion, yelling at Aditya who was walking beside me, ‘How do I look, my friend?’

  ‘Ridiculous,’ he said.

  If the standard of our camp that night was any portent of the next two months, it looked like we would be in trouble. It was my fault, for the choice of the site in sandy ground amongst a forest of casuarina trees overlooking the sea was mine. I selected this scenic spot for two reasons. The first was that it was very close to Konarak, where the next morning we would officially start the great trek. The second was that I had developed a romantic idea of this journey. It was to be a journey of imagination, from the sea to the source, from the blue waters of the Bay of Bengal to the mighty Ganga at the ancient seat of the Emperor Ashoka’s empire, Pataliputra. If only instead I had remembered my boy scout training. Tent pegs do not hold in sandy ground. I should have listened to Bhim, for chaining Tara to a slim, shallow-rooted casuarina tree was about as effective as tying her with a piece of string to a daisy.

  It turned into a night of bedlam, not helped by copious amounts of rum which I had liberally distributed to celebrate our first camp. Khusto passed out. Bhim and Gokul could hardly stand. It was left to Aditya and me to try and control Tara. Three times she escaped, and in the process flattened an area the size of a football field. Dotted intermittently along the edge of the road were signs saying in big red letters: GOVERNMENT OF ORISSA FORESTRY DEPARTMENT. KEEP OUT. NEW PLANTATION. Eventually, under the threat of a ban on alcohol for one week, Bhim miraculously sobered up. With another of those shaky salutes, and after several attempts to climb aboard Tara, he announced that he was in full control and that he and Gokul would chain her to a sturdy tree about a mile down the road.

  Aditya and I curled up inside a collapsed tent and fell asleep. One hour later we were woken by the sound of rattling chains and wild singing. Peering blearily out of the tent, I was amazed to see approaching us at top speed through the gloom, Bhim riding Tara, followed by a staggering Gokul. Mummy (Tara) had been a bad girl, Bhim informed us, and made a fool out of him. He had given her a good talking to and now Mummy knew who was the boss. Also Mummy had told him that she was lonely at the tree and wanted to spend the night near Daddy (Aditya) and Raja-sahib (me). So, with an incoherent mahout, a drunken chaarkatiya and a comatose driver, we spent our first night with Tara chained to the rear bumper of the jeep.

  5

  The Black Pagoda

  AGAINST A FLURRY of protests I enforced a mandatory early-morning dip in the sea for everybody, to clear away the effects of last night’s excesses. Only Tara was excluded after she had expressed great suspicion and then terror at the sound of beating waves and had run up the beach trumpeting, causing a group of amazed fishermen to drop their nets and dive for safety behind their boats.

  As we entered Konarak the first rays of a glorious sunrise were illuminating the Black Pagoda, a temple of such solitary grandeur yet of such sensuality that my first impression was one of shock. I had been fortunate once, many years ago, to have visited an empty Taj Mahal on a bright moonlit night and had thought that nothing I would ever see could surpass it for its beauty. But the Taj Mahal is a mausoleum, a tomb, silent in its splendour while Konarak is alive, a constant motion of stone – celestial nymphs with swelling breasts and rounded hips, the rhythms of the lovers and the ecstasy on the faces of the erotic statues. Its energy is manifest in scenes of royal hunts and military expeditions, with infantry, cavalry and elephants marching in full regalia, speaking of the dream of an ambitious and mighty monarch.

  Conceived as a celestial chariot of the Sun God, pulled by seven exquisitely carved horses and supported by twenty-four monolithic wheels, each of which represents the division of time, the temple was constructed by King Narasimha Deva the First of the Ganga dynasty of Orissa in the mid-thirteenth century ad. Twelve thousand men toiled ceaselessly for twelve years to complete this masterpiece, and it was named the Black Pagoda by the captains of coastal ships who used it as a landmark. Konarak is the peak of Orissan architecture about which it was said that the artisans ‘built like Titans and finished like jewellers’. On the north side stand two lifelike elephants, their flesh rendered with wonderful realism. Between these stone elephants, dwarfed by their size, Tara made her ceremonial ‘pranam’ by lifting her trunk in salute. The head priest of Konarak came out to bless her.

  In the shortening shadows of the Black Pagoda we set off triumphantly on our journey, applauded by a laughing crowd, many of them poking fun at the ridiculous figure striding out ahead, wearing a hat that had become a bonnet under its weight of garlands.

  The countryside was lush, sensual and green (similar to Indonesia). Paddy fields dotted with clumps of bamboo and palm trees stretched for miles. Flashes of brilliant colour suddenly emerged as men in bright lunghis of emerald green, azure and saffron that had faded to salmon-pink stood up, gazed for a moment and then waved and shouted in greeting, their dark muscular bodies black against the green. Kites wheeled on thermals overhead and piebald and blue kingfishers hovered stationary above the fields. Then, wings pulled into their sides, they dived like arrows into the water and reappeared with frogs, fishes and small snakes in their beaks.

  ‘What are those?’ I said to Aditya, pointing to slim, glossy black birds with long, deeply forked tails that perched in lines on the telegraph wires, looking like a selection of chic little black hats displayed in a milliner’s window.

  ‘Drongos,’ he said excitedly. Aditya was a keen amateur ornithologist and seemed relieved that my conversation was not going to revolve exclusively around Tara. ‘They are clever birds,’ he continued. ‘They ride on the backs of grazing cattle and capture the insects that are disturbed by the animals’ feet. With any luck, we’ll see a racket-tailed drongo. They are much larger and have two long spatula tipped feathers like streamers in the tail. I have always longed to own one. They are superb mimics.’

  Passersby stopped in amazement. Some just stared, open mouthed. Others turned their bicycles round to follow us and I overheard snatches of conversation with Bhim. ‘Haathi-wallah, Konarak.’ Then they smiled shyly clasping their hands together in gr
eeting. But it was the children who went wild. At every village out they came, screaming and laughing and shouting. ‘Haathi, haathi, haathi, haathi,’ they cried and chased after us. One or two of the braver ones moved up in front of Tara and fed her bamboo and sugar cane.

  At other villages we stopped and took tea, the best tea I had ever tasted, sweetened with sugar and cardamom. Tara was surrounded and paper bags of ‘ludoos’ (sweet yellow round cakes) were produced. She would delight the crowd by consuming the entire paper bag. Then she helped herself liberally to the piles of sweets and cakes laid out in trays in front of the shop. Sometimes her greed annoyed the owners and Bhim would smack her trunk smartly, reproving her, whereupon she would squeeze her small brown eyes shut like a naughty little girl. ‘Mummy learn proper manners,’ he told me seriously. ‘She too greedy. She have bad habits. She Raja-sahib haathi now. She behave like one.’

  Worryingly, Tara’s foot did not seem to be getting better. She was walking with a pronounced limp, and it was Bhim who discovered the cause of this lameness – an infection caused by a wicked metal leg shackle with small spikes which pointed inwards that had been used on her by Rajpath. One of the spikes had caused a deep-rooted ulcer, but, Bhim told me, with hot-water compresses mixed with salt applied nightly she would soon be better. Until then, nobody was to ride her except him. The howdah, due to its weight, was abandoned. His knowledge of elephant ailments reassured me, but I fussed about like an expectant father.

  It was a glorious day as I watched her plodding along in front of me, her tail swishing and her trunk shooting out from side to side, plucking at branches from overhead trees, flapping her great ears and munching with contentment. I felt wonderfully happy and patted her on her big, fat bottom.

  ‘She really is lovely, isn’t she, Aditya?’

  ‘Yes, Mark.’

  ‘No, I mean she is the most beautiful elephant in the world, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, Mark.’ I could see I was going to drive him mad.

  Considering it was our first day on the road, and that Tara was lame, we stopped and made camp by a wide river on the outskirts of a village called Nimpalla after covering a distance of only twelve miles. There are two basic requisites for a camp-site when travelling with an elephant: one is water, for bathing and drinking, and the other is a stout, thickly leaved tree to which one can safely chain the elephant, to provide shelter from the sun and perhaps obtain fodder. We were lucky to find both. Beside the river, a row of ancient Peepul trees stood like sturdy oaks. In a few minutes Gokul, with the agility of a monkey, and armed with an axe, had disappeared into the upper foliage and soon Tara’s dinner came crashing to the ground.

  For my benefit camps were, if possible, to be set up away from villages in the future. I had not yet become adjusted to the huge crowds I knew our entourage would attract. I realised I had no right to complain. I was travelling in their country, probably camping on their land. An elephant with a foreigner was understandably fair game, but I was still too much of a tourist to tolerate such human curiosity. As countless pairs of eyes scrutinised my every move while I struggled with Aditya to put up our ridiculously complicated tent, I was not in the most charitable frame of mind.

  ‘Go away,’ I roared, waving my hands like a demented marionette. A hundred pairs of eyes blinked once, my tormentors settled themselves more comfortably on their haunches and waited patiently for the show to go on.

  ‘They won’t go,’ Aditya remarked quietly. ‘Just ignore them.’

  ‘Well can’t you frighten them or something?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘if you removed those white socks and covered up those ridiculous blue underpants they might think that you’re a human being instead of a creature from outer space.’

  ‘I’m going to take a bath with Tara,’ I added grumpily, noticing Bhim leading her towards the river.

  ‘That, my friend, will probably cause a riot.’

  Watching an elephant take a bath is a delight in itself, but bathing with, or washing an elephant is something close to experiencing paradise. When I reached the river she was lying at full length with a contented expression on her face. Bhim and Gokul were busily scraping her with stones and the normally grey skin on her protruding backside was already turning black and shiny. Occasionally the tip of her trunk emerged like the periscope of a submarine, spraying them playfully with water before disappearing again and blowing a series of reverberating bubbles. I grabbed a suitable stone and, forgetting my self-consciousness, joined in the fun.

  After half an hour my arms were aching, my fingers were bleeding, but I felt absurdly proud. Bhim, sensing my eagerness, gave me the honour of cleaning her trunk, her ears and around her eyes, something which usually only the mahout, who is most familiar to the elephant, will undertake, due to the extreme sensitivity of these areas. However, he made sure that the ankush was hooked around the top of one of her ears at all times.

  ‘If Mummy feels that,’ he explained, ‘she give Raja-sahib no trouble.’

  She didn’t, except at one moment when she took a liking to my underpants (I’m glad somebody did) and dragged them half down. This caused hilarity among the crowd, now squatting on the side of the river bank. The whole process was then repeated on the elephant’s other side. By means of a sharp command from Bhim, she lumbered to her knees and rolled over, creating a small tidal wave. Taking to my new job as a mahout’s assistant too zealously, I found out the hard way that Tara did not like to be scrubbed on the soles of her feet. She was extremely ticklish, and being winded by the kick of an elephant was not an experience I would care to repeat. I still had a lot to learn, I realised, or rather she had a lot to teach me.

  After feeding Tara we sprawled around a blazing fire, bloated from an evening meal of corned beef, lentils and rice, spiced with a few chillis. This was to be our staple diet, unless we could find the odd chicken or goat. None of us, it seems, were great chefs. Perhaps Indrajit might fill the position. Mugs were filled with carefully measured tots of rum and we drank each other’s health, banging the tin mugs together and solemnly uttering the words, ‘Jai Mata’ (victory to the Goddess).

  His inhibitions softened by the liquor, Bhim began to reminisce in a mumbling voice. ‘Haathi, nicer than people. Only hurt if you trick. Never eat until haathi eat. If feed well always faithful. But not not steal haathi food. Haathi always know. Haathi wait. Then haathi attack. Many mahouts bad, steal haathi food. Bad mahout, dead mahout.’

  I asked him why he had become involved with elephants. ‘In blood,’ he replied.

  Many years ago his father was the chief mahout to the Maharaja of Mayurbhanj, so he had grown up with the elephants. But there was one incident that changed his life, and from that moment on he knew that his destiny was to work with the haathi. He was involved in a tiger shoot in the forest of Mayurbhanj organised by the Maharaja for some visiting dignitaries. His father and the other mahouts were riding the main elephants while he and another younger mahout, who were riding the supply elephants, became separated somehow from the main party. They ended up camping alone at night in the jungle. Bhim woke up to the sound of a tiger close by and then listened in terror as the tiger killed and dragged away the other mahout. His own elephant with instinctive protection had grabbed him by its trunk, pulled him between its legs and stood guard all night, trumpeting fiercely as the tiger stalked around. In the morning Bhim had ridden back to safety.

  ‘Haathi, like Mummy. Guard child.’

  Later as I lay in the tent I thought about what Bhim had told me. Even above Aditya’s stentorian snoring I could hear Tara happily feeding – the crackling and crunching of branches followed by a contented munching. There was something reassuring about an elephant close by. It was like being guarded by a huge jovial nanny, and I fell asleep dreaming of tigers and temples.

  A torrential rainstorm in the night was just a foretaste of the kind of weather that was going to dog us for the next two weeks. All the tents were blown down and the ground w
as ankle-deep in water. When I went to retrieve my air mattress from the mass of sodden canvas, it floated happily towards the river. In the half-light we struck camp quickly, cursing as we tripped over our tent pegs and guy ropes, serenaded by a deafening chorus of belching frogs which seemed to be laughing at our discomfort.

  As another day’s march began, Aditya and I walked gingerly. Blisters, or ‘water bottles’ as he more aptly described them, had begun to appear on our feet. Both of us were lame, and Bhim and Gokul had fever, shivering under umbrellas.

  ‘Water bottle coming up under left big toe,’ Aditya barked as he splashed along.

  ‘Two water bottles under heel on right foot,’ I replied wincing. ‘God, they’re painful! Do slow down, I can’t bear it any longer.’

  ‘Don’t be so feeble. Crush them, forget the pain. Imagine what my ancestors had to endure.’

  ‘Your ancestors,’ I pointed out crossly, ‘were generals and commanders. I bet they never walked anywhere; rode in great comfort on horses, I should imagine.’ I turned to look at Bhim enviously, wondering whether I was ever going to ride Tara.

  Our misery turned to laughter at the chaos Tara caused as we passed. Goatherds frantically tried to control their animals as they scattered bleating and panicking into the paddy fields. Bullock cart drivers on their way to the market, their ramshackle contraptions piled precariously with their wares, stood up and shouted, ‘Hut, Hut,’ mercilessly whipping their cattle like charioteers, urging them to pass us quickly. Sometimes they dismounted and covered the animals’ eyes. It was to no avail. The bullocks, big enough in themselves, and sensing that something much bigger was threatening them, charged away uncontrollably foaming at the mouth, scattering their loads on the road. Three young men riding a small moped passed, whipping us in a fine spray. All three turned simultaneously, as if to double check that what they had seen was not a dream. The moped, out of control, snaked off the road and crashed into a muddy ditch. They were not put out in the slightest, laughing uproariously as we helped them out of their messy predicament.