Travels on my Elephant

by Mark Shand

  ‘During the famine of 1770,’ I reminded Aditya, ‘when people were dying in their hundreds of thousands, you went completely berserk and, it is recorded, “raged like wild beasts across the country”.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ Aditya said enthusiastically.

  ‘It’s not a nice story, but I must say you were efficient, in your extortionist greed.’

  ‘Well there you are,’ he replied. ‘Nothing better than an efficient army.’

  ‘Fortunately for Orissa your efficiency barely lasted a century. The British stormed the fort and the Maratha yoke was finally broken.’

  ‘Bloody British,’ he remarked with a laugh. ‘Always poking their noses in where they’re not wanted.’

  Over the next few days we headed slowly northwards, gradually entering into rural Orissa, camping in government rest-houses and schools to avoid the discomfort of wet nights under canvas. The monsoons were still in full flow. Tara’s foot had healed almost totally due to the injections that Aditya now performed expertly each evening. Bhim’s sly plan didn’t seem to be working as she paid rather more attention to Aditya than me. I was convinced that the vet was right; Tara was grateful to Aditya for healing her pain and they had become firm friends.

  In preparation for my imminent training as a rookie mahout, Bhim had given Aditya a list of basic elephant commands which Aditya had written down for me phonetically. Mercifully there were only seventeen of them, not eighty-four as I had been told, and unless I learnt Hindi they just about covered everything. In the evenings, Aditya and I would wring out our wet, bloody socks and attempt to patch up the raw holes with Elastoplast, while I practised my commands.

  Agit (Ah-git) – Forward/go

  Peechay (Pee.Chay, like the name) – Back

  Chai ghoom (like chime, like goon) – Right

  Chi (like cheese) – Left

  Chhee (like cheese again, but longer) – Dirty

  Dhuth (like Dutch without the ‘ch’) – Stop, the most important command, which I never quite managed to master

  Maar Thode (Ma, toad) – Break

  A Dhur (A like Eh, Dur like Durbar) – Get this/get that

  Oopar Dhur (Oo, pa, dur) – Reach up/grab

  Mylay (My, lay) – Get up

  Baitho (Buy, toe) – Down/get down on your knees

  Theeray (Tea, ray) – Lie down/roll over on side

  Theylay Chhup (Tea, lay, chap) – Drink

  Bey (Bay) – Bitch

  Lay lay (same) – Eat/take food/open your mouth. This one was pointless. Tara needed no encouragement

  Utha (Oo, ta) – Lift

  Bowl Bowl (same) – Speak/say thank you

  This is easy, I thought to myself smugly, and was soon word perfect.

  ‘I’ve learnt them,’ I told Aditya. ‘Test me.’ I had hardly reached the ‘Pee’ of ‘Peechay’ before he exploded.

  ‘For goodness sake, Mark. This is an elephant, not a dog. You sound exactly like that tweedy lady on British television who stomps around in green wellington boots saying “Sit. Walkies. Good doggy.”’

  ‘Barbara Woodhouse,’ I interrupted crossly, ‘was jolly successful.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you my friend, this is a different ball game. Rather than speaking like some la-di-da debutante, put some life into it – “Dhuth,”’ he roared.

  Tara dug her front legs in and stopped dead. A mahout with lesser experience than Bhim would have fallen off. As it was, he lurched forward and buried his head in Tara’s neck, almost swallowing the cigarette he had clamped between his teeth.

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ I said humbly. ‘I think I need a bit more practice.’

  We stopped that night beside a lake surrounded by mist-veiled hills. For a change it was eerily silent; there were no people and only the soft ‘clock clock’ of wooden bells attached to the necks of the grazing cattle and the ‘pit-a-pat’ of something being thrown on top of our tents disturbed us. Tara, chained to a tree behind us, enthusiastically scooped up trunkfuls of earth and flung it over her shoulder, giving herself a mud bath. She soon resembled a giant molehill, but the coating of mud was an effective deterrent against the insects that were annoying her.

  It was an evening of an old mahout’s tales. Whether fact or fiction it did not seem to matter, and as the rum took effect Bhim, with his eyes closed, began to talk, not for our benefit particularly, or to anyone – just an old man’s reminiscences because the time was right. He spoke contemptuously about the new methods of caring for elephants and of the people who claimed to understand them, but did not; of how it had been he who had been sent to capture a tusker rampaging in the jungles, causing havoc and destruction among the villages and to the people’s crops, after all modern methods of capture had failed. The tusker had not been a wild elephant but a domesticated animal that had gone wild after being deserted by its mahout, probably a mendicant like Rajpath. Bhim had been sent for and had performed an old puja taught to him by his father, cutting the ear of another elephant, taking a little blood and offering it to a deity of Ganesh. Then he had been able to approach the tusker and within five days, soothing and comforting the distressed animal, had ridden him back to the zoo. He spoke of crossing the Simlipals, now a huge wildlife sanctuary, as a child, on top of a bus. The bus had passed under a rocky escarpment and he had felt hot breath and seen a flash of yellow hair as a tiger launched itself on to the bus and carried away the man sitting next to him. And he spoke of how the Maharaja of Mayurbhanj had presented the British Collector, who was returning to England, with a baby elephant; how the little calf had been hoisted by a ‘big machine’ on to the ship; how in return the Collector had presented the Maharaja with a thousand and one balloons of all different colours, shaped like animals, and of his amazement and delight seeing them float into the air around the ship as it slowly slid from its berth.

  Later that night I was awoken by a soft tap on my shoulder and a rum-laced whisper in my ear.

  ‘Come, quietly, Raja-sahib, you look Mummy sleeping.’

  I crept outside and there, like a grey boulder, Tara lay quietly on her side, her trunk curled around her neck emitting a wonderfully soothing sound like bubbles escaping from a diver’s mouthpiece.

  ‘Mummy snoring,’ he whispered. ‘Mummy happy.’

  7

  Touch-me-not

  OVERNIGHT, AS IF somebody had simply pushed a button, the monsoons left us, hurrying their black clouds further south. There was a distinct change in the air. It was crisp, alive; the early morning a few degrees colder and then warming as the sun rose. Autumn in India had arrived bringing with it long, hot, golden days of harvest, celebration and festivals.

  As instructed by Bhim, we were to be on the look-out for the mimosa plant, otherwise known as ‘touch-me-not’. If you caressed its small fern-like leaves they closed quickly, like a shutting book. The plant was an essential ingredient in the puja that was soon to be performed, where I would take on Bhim as my guru. Bhim called it the ‘full control ceremony’. Once Tara had eaten the blessed offering of mimosa and gur, he explained, she would be as obedient as a lamb and I would become the complete master. I was sceptical about this – not that I doubted Bhim, but because I doubted my abilities in controlling Tara, who was becoming friskier as each day passed. All the same I eagerly scanned the countryside for this plant. I was going to need all the help I could get. I was also encouraged by watching Gokul. He had apparently undergone a similar ceremony before we had started at Nandankanan and now was riding Tara with all the ability of a seasoned mahout, urging her along with shrill, squeaky cries.

  We were well into rural Orissa, where fresh droppings were abundant, signalling that we had entered elephant country. At the top of the giant bamboo groves ringing the paddy fields were tree houses, constructed like large storks’ nests, access to which was gained by long rickety ladders. These were anti-elephant machans in which the villagers would sit at night and, by means of fireworks, crackers, shouting and flaming torches, attempt to deter rampa
ging beasts from demolishing their crops. In one village, where we stopped for tea, a young man, the local teacher, approached me.

  ‘It is indeed,’ he said, ‘a wonderful thing that you are coming today. A gift from the gods.’

  ‘Namaste,’ I replied, delighted by this welcome but slightly bewildered.

  ‘You, of course, will stop and help us?’ he enquired eagerly.

  ‘Well, yes,’ now completely bewildered. ‘If I can.’

  ‘It is the tusker, sir. It has decimated our crops. It has already killed eleven of our people. You,’ he said pointing to Tara, ‘will catch it with your elephant.’

  ‘Catch it with my elephant?’ I answered amazed. Tara was happily rummaging around by the side of the tea-stall in search of food. The thought of the four of us with Tara engaged in some mad Mela Shikar chasing a highly dangerous elephant was absurd, and yet it was wonderful that he imagined it as being so simple. ‘I’m sorry. You see we are just travelling through your beautiful country and we are not equipped to undertake such a task. Can’t the government do anything about it?’

  ‘The government,’ he replied crestfallen, ‘will do nothing. The tusker has only killed eleven people, sir. It must kill twenty-four before they are even considering taking actions.’

  This was but one of many similar situations that I would encounter on my travels concerning the growing imbalance in India between the rural man and the natural life of the elephant living in harmony. Both are blameless and both are victims of greed; greed caused by the desire for timber, and the consequent massive deforestation. Elephants are creatures of habit. They have, for centuries, followed the same migratory routes in search of food. They arrive and find none: their larder has been cut down, and in desperation they turn to raiding crops on which the villagers’ livelihood depends. The villagers are helpless and, even if they could afford to buy modern firearms, would usually be loath to use them. The elephant is a revered beast. Even when, which is seldom, a licence is granted to shoot an elephant that has been established as a rogue, more often than not the kill is not carried out. They revert to modern methods of trying to drug the animal, which in reality is an expensive and impractical situation. In a local newspaper I had read about a problem tusker that had killed and was causing havoc in another area of Orissa:

  Licences were issued to kill it. When the hunters took position closer to the pachyderm to shoot him, they found that tears flowed from his eyes and he was supplicant. They dropped their plans and the tusker returned to the forests. The experts are of the opinion that the best way to tackle the situation is to capture the pachyderm. For every untoward incident created by the animal, they contend, there has been enough provocation by the timber merchants and the others who depend on the forest produce. The Minister for Forests who was informed of the case, vehemently opposed all proposals to kill the elephant. He asserted that he would instruct the forest staff to have him tranquillised and deported to the zoo where necessary arrangements with Rs 1 lakh would be made to get him trained under an expert mahout from Assam.

  Sadly, this situation is worsening. The Indian elephant is simply running out of living space. Recently a herd of thirty were creating havoc as close as twenty miles to Calcutta. It is fervently to be hoped that desperate measures like culling will not be introduced, and it is up to man to redress the balance. The tiger, which until recently was almost extinct, is beginning to make a dramatic recovery thanks to the resources and expertise made available to ‘Project Tiger’. The elephant must now be given the same attention.

  At Mandahat, we came to another mighty river, the Brahamani. Some people had told us authoritatively that it was six feet deep and could be crossed, while others shook their heads, knowledgeably stating that it had burst its banks. The latter were right: no one could ford it. We took a short cut along a road which would lead us to another bridge at Kabatobandah, where we hoped to meet up with the jeep. The road soon turned into a track, and then into nothing, as we found ourselves amongst fields choked with baysharam, a kind of bush with long wavy stems sprouting lilac bell-shaped flowers, also known as ‘shameless’ for its gregarious, prolific and deep-rooted growth. It is considered a virulent weed which causes the Indian farmer enormous difficulties. The baysharam gave way to bamboo groves that had been decimated by wild elephants. In turn the bamboo led into sal forests still being decimated by human beings, in which the sound of a falling axe was always audible.

  Considering their size, it is remarkable how elephants can move so soundlessly. Tara’s footsteps, at their loudest, resembled the shuffle of an old man wearing carpet slippers. Because of this quietness, we encountered everything with an element of surprise, whether animal, human, bird or insect. Aditya was particularly happy. When we saw the flash of a golden oriole, a beautiful yellow bird with a jet black streak through its eye dipping away with a raucous Cheeugh, or the long ribbon-like tail of a paradise flycatcher, he would jot down his sightings excitedly in a small book. At one point Tara disturbed a carpet of big yellow butterflies that exploded into the air. A single butterfly, more courageous than its companions, attached itself firmly to the end of her trunk and after several vain attempts to dislodge it, by swinging it from side to side, she finally blew it off with a large sneeze.

  The sal forests began to thin out and we moved carefully along the ridges dividing well-tended paddy fields. In corners of these fields were small tribal shrines situated under the spread of large shady trees. Dedicated to the goddess Devi, they consisted of groups of exquisite terracotta figures of horses, camels, elephants and bears which were offered as gifts to the deity, to ensure a healthy harvest to the indigenous Mundas. In the distance we heard the sound of drums. Spurring Tara on, we reached a small collection of thatched huts with pink walls surrounding a muddy courtyard where a Munda party was in full swing. A chain of men and women, dark muscular people with full lips and handsome high-cheekboned faces, were pounding their feet drunkenly in ankle-deep mud, performing a kind of ritual hokey-cokey.

  At the sight of Tara looming over their compound, they threw their arms into the air, moaning loudly. The drum tempo increased, they whirled in ever-decreasing circles and finally collapsed laughing in an exhausted heap. A young woman wearing a brilliant azure sari, moulded to the contours of her body, untangled herself from the group and undulated over to Tara. She knelt gracefully and touched Tara’s feet in obeisance. Each of her companions followed suit, and then offered us leaf cups containing a milky fluid which they had filled from large terracotta gourds. This was ‘handia’, a local rice beer. At first it tasted slightly bitter and fizzy, but after numerous replenishments, one was filled with a sense of contentment.

  The drums started again. We were dragged to our feet and whirled round the compound. Now as drunk as our hosts, we proudly showed our paces. Aditya performed a sort of martial strut. I attempted to show them break dancing, which resulted in my head becoming firmly stuck in the mud, my feet waving in the air. Gokul, the professional, delighted the audience by doing somersaults, handstands and back flips. Even Tara, after draining one of the gourds, flapped her ears and shook her head while Bhim squatted with the elders and concentrated on the more serious aspect of things – drinking. When we took our leave the women presented us each with a frangipani flower, garlanded Tara, and blessed us for a safe journey.

  We reached a small river where a flash flood had washed away the bridge. A man sat forlornly on the bank drying out a bundle of soggy letters. He told us that while attempting to cross, he had been knocked over by the current and his bicycle was now caught in a bundle of branches in the middle of the whirling water. Bhim and Tara waded into the river. Directed by his sharp commands of ‘Uhta, uhta,’ Tara lowered her trunk and plucked the bicycle from the branches as if it was a feather, depositing it gently in front of the grateful postman.

  Out of curiosity, I penned a letter to myself in London and gave it to him. When I returned home three months later it was waiting for me. The letter w
as slightly worse for wear, with an added message written on the back of the envelope. ‘For Haathi-wallah from K. Rath, postman, thanking him sincerely.’

  Guided by a full moon that washed the landscape in a pale light, we finally crossed the Brahamani over a long concrete bridge. It was late by the time we found the camp and by the look on Indrajit’s face we knew there had been trouble between the two drivers.

  ‘Khusto!’ he spat fiercely. ‘No good, he take rum. He always drunk. No helping either. I put tents, I cook, he does nothing. So I hit him. Either he go or I go.’

  Aditya and I looked at each other in despair. We did not need a domestic squabble and we couldn’t afford to lose Indrajit. He was invaluable. We checked the rum supply. Indrajit was right. Out of a new case of twelve bottles of rum one was missing. We found Khusto sitting in the jeep nursing a face that was even more swollen than usual. He mumbled something incomprehensible and turned his back to us insolently.

  ‘Leave this to me, Mark,’ Aditya said angrily.

  For the next ten minutes there was an angry exchange of words punctuated by metallic slaps as Aditya banged his fist on the side of the jeep. It stopped abruptly. Khusto’s voice had changed. He was now pleading. Eventually he shuffled into the firelight and muttered an apology to Indrajit and offered his hand. Indrajit took it hesitatingly and then with an angry smile touched him on the shoulder. The crisis it seemed was over for a time.

  ‘What did you tell him?’ I asked Aditya.

  ‘Simple, my friend. He has stolen, so therefore he is a thief. I threatened to take him to the police station. That did it. I have told him that from now on Indrajit is the boss.’

  ‘Do you think it will work?’ I said.

  ‘We’ll see. Anyway, I don’t think Khusto’s bad, just foolish. He told me that all his problems stem from being born with too small a tongue.’