Travels on my Elephant

by Mark Shand

  On the other side of the temple, I came across the Naga Saddhus, who are fiercely ascetic and protect their privacy zealously. Trained in all forms of fighting they are treated with great respect. Their naked bodies daubed in ash, their faces painted white and vermilion, they resent any intrusion from outsiders, and woe betide anyone stupid enough to try and photograph them. I managed a short conversation with one of them. As a penance, he had not sat down for six years and supported his stiffened and deformed legs by leaning on a kind of wooden swing. He was most indignant when I told him that an elephant belonging to King Louis XIV did not lie down for the last ten years of its life and had worn two holes in the stone buttress with its tusks, on which it supported itself. I beat a hasty retreat.

  There were the usual abominable sights of the poor unfortunate cripples. One was more terrifying and heartrending than anything I had ever seen. It was a young boy – or rather what was left of a young boy – just a small torso supporting a head, twisted and contorted by some hideous disease. He was pushed around in a little cart. On it perched a parrot, which took your money in its beak.

  As I re-entered the Haathi Bazaar, I witnessed two extraordinary fights. Both had been caused by theft, and both were not without humour. The first was a clash of titans between two female elephants, staked next to one another. One of the females had stolen the other’s sugar cane. She turned quickly on the thief and instead of using her head as a battering ram, she tried in the most ludicrous fashion to bite off the other one’s tail. They whirled around trumpeting and squealing in a cloud of dust, looking like squabbling schoolgirls pulling each other’s hair. Three or four mahouts, armed with spears, waded in quickly and put an end to this farce.

  The second fight was decidedly one-sided until an unusual intervention stopped it. A thief had been caught and was being punished in typical local fashion. His hands had been tied behind his back and his feet bound together. Two hefty men wielding long bamboo sticks proceeded to give him a sound beating on his head and the soles of his feet until he was a crying, bleeding wreck. The women, I noticed, particularly enjoyed this spectacle and joined in enthusiastically kicking the unfortunate man’s ribs with sturdy feet, their toes encircled by gold rings, like knuckle-dusters. He would have been killed but for the sudden arrival of a tall, pale, sweating Englishman, a camera slung around his neck, wearing a floppy sun hat. I looked more closely. It was a friend of mine, a travel editor for a glossy London magazine. He waded bravely into the mêlée holding his hands above his head shouting ‘Bas, bas,’ the only word he knew in Hindi. When this had no effect, he clasped his hands fervently together as in prayer, fell to his knees and cried ‘por favore, por favore!!’ Immediately the beating stopped and the crowd became silent. He called the police, who took the bleeding man away.

  There was great excitement in the camp when I returned. Tara’s price had gone shooting up, from 70 to 90,000 rupees. This offer had come from a man, Aditya told me, who had a dishonest face and apparently owned a hotel in Delhi. The man had said his elephants were well looked after and simply took tourists for rides once a day. Unfortunately, one of them had been hit by a bus.

  19

  Swept Away

  OUR PROCESSION INTO Sonepur town to garland the statue of the freedom fighter was most impressive. The grandees of the Shoba Theatre supplied us with a bodyguard and I felt terribly important. Forming a phalanx around us, they spearheaded a path through the gaping onlookers. Our entourage, however, did not quite match that of the Prime Minister of Nepal who arrived in Sonepur in 1871 with a bodyguard of three hundred Gurkhas and a harem of pretty, lively Nepalese princesses.

  My self-importance now blown out of all proportion, I expected a tumultuous welcome to greet me. Instead, there was an infuriated, sweating policeman, trying vainly to control the traffic, roaring uncontrollably around the monument, and a madman juggling ludoos. One of the grandees placed a garland of marigolds in my hand. Self-consciously I climbed over the fence protecting the statue, looped the garland over the marble head, and feeling I should somehow justify this honour that had been bestowed upon me, bowed deeply. As I climbed out, the madman dropped his ludoos, grabbing me fiercely in a sticky embrace.

  Again cocooned by our bodyguard, we soon reached a large building like a warehouse, constructed from wood and corrugated iron. Its front façade was painted gaudily with ladies cavorting in various stages of undress. Tannoys noisily advertised the delights of the show to an eagerly waiting crowd, pushing and shoving to get nearer an entrance controlled by four large policemen wielding large lead-topped bamboo canes with clinical efficiency.

  ‘Welcome to the Shoba Theatre, Mr Shand,’ the spokesman shouted. ‘As you can see it is very popular. Come. We will go through the back.’

  Inside it resembled an aircraft hangar. At one end, shrouded by a gauzy curtain, was the stage, the backdrop a grove of palm trees set against a starry night. Below, in the pit, fenced off by large iron palings, sat the orchestra tuning their instruments in a cacophony of discordant notes. Behind the pit were the best seats, costing 25 rupees, and separated from them by a triple-stranded barrier of barbed wire, was standing room only, at five rupees per person. The theatre put on three shows daily and could hold a crowd of eighteen thousand people.

  We sat sipping tea and eating cakes in the wings. Aditya and I were introduced to the artistes – highly painted, plumpish ladies in sequinned outfits, their male partners squeezed into tightly fitting jumpsuits, brocaded like matadors’ costumes. The building vibrated suddenly, as the gates were opened and a surge of people fought their way in.

  Behind the curtain, a row of chairs had been placed beyond a large red ribbon. A barrage of arc lights hit us as we sat down. I felt inordinately self-conscious and nervous. Sweat began to trickle down my back. The star of the show, Miss Shoba, whose appearance caused a roar of excitement from the crowd, blessed and garlanded us. Long speeches followed. The Master of Ceremonies, wearing a smart, navy blue blazer with shiny gold buttons and white bell-bottomed trousers, introduced me as the famous English mahout and gave a lengthy account of my adventures. The crowd became instantly restless, longing for the show to start.

  The band struck up, the gauzy curtains lifted and a pair of scissors were thrust into my hands. I stood up, sawed through the ribbon and stammered a few appropriate words, which Aditya then translated. Miss Shoba reappeared and led me off the stage to a small smattering of applause. I wanted to leave immediately to see Tara but Aditya insisted it would be impolite. We must stay to watch at least one act.

  I’m glad we did. A seductive girl dressed in a black, transparent sari worked the crowd into a frenzy. The origins of the dancing girl go back to the Gandharva women, renowned for their beauty and skill in dancing and singing. In the old days when the fair was a meeting place for Rajas, zamindars, big agriculturists and businessmen, the girls made a good harvest. Fees of 500 or 1,000 rupees were a common feature for a few dances. On some of the more noted dancing girls, lakhs of rupees used to be spent for more personal services.

  The seductress of the Shoba Theatre undulated across the stage, singing a ballad of obviously erotic content. She was singing about her lover, with whom she was in bed, complaining he would not make love to her. Aditya translated: ‘Why do you not come to me, my darling? My breasts are young and firm.’ There was a groan from the crowd behind us. ‘My thighs are as soft as satin, my crop green and young, ready to be irrigated.’ This brought the house down. Turning around I saw the barbed wire bulging outwards as the crowd pressed against it, frantic to reach her, followed by the whacks of the police sticks as they rained down on unprotected heads.

  It was a relief to be back in the relative peace of the Haathi Bazaar. Smoke rose in eddies through the rich foliage of the mango orchard from the fires round which mahouts were huddled, their animated faces illuminated in the ruddy glow, as they traded tales and secrets of their ancient craft. To reach our camp we had to thread our way carefully across a carpet
of sleeping people. Inside, feet and arms protruded from under the kanat.

  Relieving Gokul, I took the next watch over Tara. She still was not her old self. There was something else, an uneasiness about her, which immediately transmitted itself to me. I felt that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that precedes impending disaster. She seemed to be trying to communicate with me. When I started to feed her sugar cane, she suddenly grabbed my arm and held it firmly in her mouth. She pulled me even closer and we rested against one another, like lovers in a long embrace. Eventually, she released me and lay down.

  All down the orchard, in night air hazy from the smoking fires, elephants lay sleeping. Disturbed by something, one would silently rise up like a monstrous spirit and then settle down again as it realised that all was well. Surrounded by six hundred tons of these huge animals, soothed by their snoring, like a ward of asthmatic old men, I felt for the first time a sense of vulnerability. I had never really given it a thought before, but as I looked back on the journey, I realised how much I had taken for granted. At any stage Tara could have killed me. Or any of us for that matter, as simply as swatting a fly. Now I understood that she had always been in control. My destiny had been in her hands. With that realisation, once again, she had taught me respect.

  The day before Kartik Purnima, we took Tara down to the Gandak for her bath. We passed the saddhu encampment. Its entrance was guarded by two wild creatures carrying tridents. Inside the saddhus were busily preparing food, churning great vats of stew in readiness for the feast the next day. Among their dark skins, I noticed an old pale woman with long grey hair, dressed in a sari, sitting quietly in the back of the marquee. At first I thought she was an albino, but looking closer I saw she was a white woman, a firinghee, and I waved to her gaily. There was no response. She sat like a stone, staring blankly. Later I found out she was deaf, dumb and blind. Fifty years ago she had been accepted by this sect, which had looked after her ever since.

  As we stood patiently in line with the other elephants, waiting for a space in the river, a fight broke out between a large tusker and a female bathing side by side. Throwing off the mahouts washing him, the tusker lumbered to his feet and charged the female who was being ridden by her mahout out of the water. His tusks, even blunted (as they have to be by law), gouged a great rip in her side. She toppled over, squealing, blood bursting from the wound, in the process crushing her mahout. The tusker charged again, enlarging the wound, then turned as if to run up the bank. Tara and the other elephants scattered in alarm. Immediately, mahouts rushed into the river. Surrounding the tusker, they stuck their spears viciously into its legs, flanks and trunk, forcing it back into the water where they managed to chain both its back and front legs. It was then led away. The poor female, badly gored, struggled to her feet, blood streaming down her flanks. From underneath the mahout emerged, miraculously unhurt.

  Disturbed by the excitement, we had neglected to chain Tara’s front feet together. As she entered the water she flipped me off and swam out about twenty yards. There she started to perform her dolphin act, plunging in and out before turning on her back to float for a few seconds, like an old lady in a swimming bath. Indrajit and I struck out towards Tara but we were unable to reach her. The current was far too strong and we struggled back to the bank. We watched helplessly as she was being swept away. Unless we could somehow cut her off, she might easily drown.

  Bhim and Gokul rushed back to the camp. Immediately Aditya arranged a posse of mahouts led by a large, unpleasant individual with a scar running down his face. He demanded, before he did anything, a fee of 600 rupees. Everyone thought this an exorbitant sum but I would gladly have paid anything to get Tara back. Two boats were arranged. Splitting into two groups, we pushed the boats out of the shallows and were at once swept down by the current. Excited crowds ran up and down the river bank, desperate not to miss the action. We caught up with Tara a mile down the river, where she was struggling, whirling round and round in a strong eddy. I dived in, followed by two mahouts. In a second we were pushed back and just managed to catch hold of our boat. Panicking, Tara lurched towards the bank and somehow extracted herself from the current.

  She sat blowing in the shallows. From the other boat, a mahout jumped into the water. Crooning gently, he approached cautiously and patted her backside to soothe her. Then he crawled up her back and sat astride her. She surged off again trying to throw him off, shaking her head and rolling. Like a champion rodeo rider, he managed to cling on, steering her to the bank.

  He was the same man who had painted Tara. When I thanked him, he told me with a smile that ‘the little one’ was only playing and he would come later to decorate her again, since most of his handiwork had been washed off in the river. I rode her back to camp, followed by a phalanx of mahouts carrying raised spears. Feeling again that unpleasant coldness in the pit of my stomach, I was convinced that this time she was not playing. It was as if she had sensed some bad omen and had made a desperate attempt to escape.

  20

  Elephant Trading

  AT LAST IT was Kartik Purnima. From three o’clock in the morning a continuous wave of people surged past, and sometimes through, our encampment, on their way to the bathing ghats. The eastern horizon started to show a hint of red. As the visibility increased I saw it would have been difficult to insert a stick between the solid mass of people stretching down from our camp.

  I was deeply impressed by the orderliness of the proceedings. Again there was no jostling, pushing or shoving. When a child fell from its mother’s arms – a frequent occurrence – the crowd instantly withdrew like a wave, opening a small gap from which it was plucked to safety. As the sun rose battalions of different sects of saddhus marched to the river, carrying their holiest men on flower-decked palanquins, heralding their arrival with the blowing of trumpets. The first elephants started to trundle down, and the crowd again parted magically to let them pass. Convinced that Tara wanted to escape, I waited until the crowds had thinned out before taking her for the ritual bath. While we waited, we were entertained by a troupe of transvestites, whose performance was brazenly suggestive. One was totally outrageous. Wearing a long black wig, and a gold-threaded tribal dress which when he pirouetted revealed his long black hairy legs, he winked and blew continuous kisses through thickly rouged lips that barely camouflaged his heavy moustache. Recognising a good portrait, Don photographed him. The transvestite took this zealous interest to be of the romantic kind, and each time Don left the camp he had to take evasive action to avoid his advances.

  Just after midday, preparations for the cremation of an old woman took place at the side of the river. Her body lay on a bamboo pallet, cocooned in a simple white sheet, scattered with marigolds and rose petals. Her neck was wrapped in a blood red silk gumcha, her face in death, serene. As the sharp rays of the sun lanced downwards, illuminating her composed features, she almost seemed to smile. The pallet was then lifted and placed on a funeral pyre. Before ‘the dom’ (the undertaker) lit it, a young boy, her grandson, came forward and placed a single red rose in her gnarled, clasped hands. The fire ignited in a burst of yellow flame and a thick black plume spiralled slowly upwards, for a moment blacking out the orb of the sun. Gathering her ashes, the family spread them on the smooth, fast surface of the Gandak, transporting her to rest in the holy Ganges.

  We bathed Tara in the mid-afternoon. The multitudes of people had largely dispersed by then, but space was still cramped. Elephants and devotees bathed side by side, in complete harmony amongst a floating carpet of droppings and rose petals. I felt weary and oddly depressed, and could not find the energy to scrub her. As she lay in the water, I stood by her head idly stroking her trunk. Perhaps it was because I realised that this was one of the last times that I would be bathing her, or perhaps it was because I knew that I had failed in my role as her protector. As I rode her up the bank towards the camp, under a tunnel of gently flapping saris in yellows, reds, saffrons, vermilions and greens, where the women had drap
ed them in the trees to dry, not even the riot of colour could lift my gloom.

  Kartik Purnima was the day when elephant trading began in earnest. Groups of powerful zamindars wearing ‘Jawahar jackets’ (coarse handwoven silk waistcoats) and dhotis were waiting to see me. Each one was surrounded by a posse of armed guards carrying ancient shotguns. Like Mexican bandits, they wore bandoliers filled with cartridges.

  One of them offered a lakh, which he said was the highest price ever paid for a female elephant. He had just sold his elephant for 75,000 rupees, he informed us, and she was undoubtedly the best elephant of the fair. He promised that his elephants were only kept for prestige. After all he was a rich man. Why should he need to rent her out? Another zamindar offered one lakh, 5,000 rupees, and whispered urgently in Aditya’s ear. It was a bribe – of any woman I desired, to be delivered anywhere, any time, at my convenience. They all left disconsolately. One group stopped at the next camp, to talk with the owner of the injured elephant. He listened to them and then nodded reassuringly in my direction.

  ‘What’s he up to?’ I asked Aditya.

  ‘He’s managed to sell his elephant, somehow, for 40,000 rupees. He’s already pestered me about selling Tara. He’s acting as middle man for that zamindar on a commission basis. We will have to be careful. I don’t trust him. I’ve asked our friend who owns the tusker to keep an eye on things. If we have any trouble, he will come over immediately.’

  Further down the orchard, I watched a deal being negotiated in the traditional way. The prospective buyer and seller sat side by side, with a blanket covering their hands. The joints of the fingers represent different amounts of money. The buyer presses the first two joints of the first finger of the right hand which, for instance, represents 5,000 rupees. The vendor in reply squeezes the same, but also pinches the first joint of the purchaser’s next finger, raising the price to say 5,500, and so on. A bargain was struck almost immediately. The two men got to their feet smiling, and clasped their hands together. The beauty of this lies in its secrecy and simplicity. The vendor may sell well below what he had asked, but no one but the purchaser would know.