To the Elephant Graveyard

by Hall, Tarquin

  During his tour of India, Charles had also spent some time in Assam and had visited Guwahati’s Kamakhya temple. “A fascinating place,” he wrote. “A centre of the black arts, where the most unspeakable acts have been performed.”

  Having finished my lunch and with two hours still left to kill, I headed off in search of this mysterious site. The temple, one of the holiest in India, stands on Nilchal Hill, on the south bank of the Brahmaputra. As I arrived, pilgrims from across the subcontinent, some of whom had travelled for weeks to reach this spot, filed back and forth along the narrow pathway that winds upwards towards the temple complex. The new arrivals wore expressions of expectation and excitement as they took the last few steps towards the goal upon which they had set their hearts. By contrast, the devotees making their way down towards the car park were lost in quiet contemplation, their eyes filled with satisfaction.

  Amongst them, I spotted a half-naked sadhu, a Hindu holy man. He was covered from head to toe in grey ash that gave him a deathly look and enhanced the whites of his eyes so that they looked hypnotic. His dreadlocks, which fell to his waist, rivalled those of a Rastafarian, the rope-like strands blackened by years of accumulated dirt and grease. His forehead was marked with three horizontal ochre lines made in holy ash. These proclaimed him to be a follower of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.

  On my way up to the temple, I stopped at one of the many curio stalls dotted along the way. Neat lines of bronze-cast Hindu gods were positioned next to a clutch of carved wooden snakes. Some frightening-looking bullwhips – which would have been more in place in an S&M shop – hung from hooks above the stallkeeper’s head, together with garlands of glazed cowry shells strung with bright plastic beads. A dozen alarm clocks, fashioned like temples complete with lotus-shaped bells, sat on a shelf. The deluxe version, which was painted a gaudy red and gold, was made out of ‘GENUINE PLASTIC’ and claimed to play six different mantras.

  The next stall sold everything a pious Hindu might want or need in the way of religious offerings. Coconuts, garlands of marigolds and boxes of incense-sticks were all on offer, together with bags of sugar balls and bunches of green bananas – the essentials for puja, or prayers. The man behind the stall, who wore a Chicago gangster-style hat, offered me a package deal. One hundred and fifty rupees would buy me everything I needed to take inside the temple. He would even anoint my head with sandalwood paste for ‘no extra charge’.

  “As part of this bargain, you will also get blessings from the god.” He beamed. “That is for free. Then your wife will be in tiptop shape!”

  I bought some offerings and took them up to the temple. At the entrance, as a foreigner, I had to pay a heavy bribe to be allowed inside. Taking the money, a Brahmin priest-cum-guide wearing flowing saffron robes instructed me to remove my shoes before he led me barefoot over the burning-hot tiles of the inner courtyard. Here, chickens and geese mingled with a wedding party waiting for their marriage ceremony to begin. The bride and bridesmaids were caked in make-up and decked out in psychedelic silk saris, elaborate nose rings and shimmering veils. As we passed by, doe-like eyes lined with kohl looked out at me and then shyly disappeared behind rippling gauze. Next to the temple’s main entrance sat a line of beggars with their backs against a wall, the late afternoon sunlight reflecting off their tin mugs and begging bowls. Like a group of actors waiting to audition for a part in a horror film, each one showed off his injury or deformity to its best effect, moaning like so many Ghosts of Christmas Past.

  “This is one of Hinduism’s holiest sites,” began the priest, who spoke English well. “It’s the place where the genitalia of the goddess Shakti landed after Vishnu cut her into pieces and strewed her parts across India.”

  Shakti, he told me, was just one of the many guises of the Mother Goddess. In the Hindu pantheon, she appears in a number of forms and reincarnations: as Durga, Uma, Devi and, most famously, as the bloodthirsty slayer Kali. When Shakti’s body was cut up, the pieces are said to have landed in fifty-one places, sites in India known as shakti pithas. Kamakhya is considered to be the most sacred. For several centuries, it was a centre of Tantric Hinduism, a cult often steeped in bloody rites and black magic. Some experts believe Assam was the birthplace of this particular brand of the Hindu faith, thought to have its roots in the ancient rites of the primitive hill tribes who have long inhabited the region.

  I followed the priest inside the temple and down a dark, dank passage that led into the innermost chamber. Burning incense-sticks and candles ate up what little oxygen was available and replaced it with suffocating, acrid smoke. Figures talking in reverent whispers moved about in the eerie atmosphere, their faces masked by shadows. The chanting of priests echoed and re-echoed all around us, the acoustics mysteriously amplifying voices that criss-crossed one another. Idols grimaced at me from the sooty walls. Their terrible images – tongues, fangs, serpents, horns – flickered in the dim candlelight and seemed to come to life.

  The temple’s innermost sanctum is home to a mound-shaped rock with a cleft in it, representing the goddess’s yoni, or genitalia. The rock is kept moist by a natural spring which, during the monsoon, miraculously runs red with iron oxide and is drunk by devotees as ‘symbolic menstrual blood’ during the festival of Ambuvachi.

  While I watched the priest begin the complex ceremony, it wasn’t difficult to picture the horrific practices for which Kamakhya was infamous in the past. Thousands of men were decapitated here amidst terrible rites designed to honour the goddess who, it was believed, relished human blood. Occasionally, there were even mass sacrifices – in 1565, 140 men died on one day alone.

  Of those killed, many were volunteers known as bhogis. In return for their supreme sacrifice, these men were allowed to live in luxury for a year. During those twelve months, they could have as many women as they liked. They were pampered by servants around the clock, laden with presents and promised a place in paradise by Kamakhya’s powerful priesthood. At the annual festival of Ambuvachi, the men would be taken to a sacrificial altar where their heads were cut off and placed on a golden platter before an image of Shakti. Later, their lungs were cooked and eaten, and their blood was drained and used to boil rice, which was consumed by those who had gathered to watch them die.

  Today, the only offerings the goddess Shakti receives at Kamakhya are bananas, sugar balls and, if she’s lucky, the occasional goat. Nonetheless, the puja was not without colour. Bells were rung, incense-sticks lit, yet more sandalwood was smeared on my forehead, mantras were spoken in reverent tones and the milk from my coconut was poured over the yoni rock.

  Eventually we emerged into the dusk. At the gate, I paid the priest for his services and he thanked me gratefully, promising that my life would be filled with good fortune. As I made my way to meet Mr Choudhury, I could only hope that the priest was right.

  ♦

  Back at the hotel, Rishi the concierge told me that Mr Banerjee, the mysterious gentleman from the Ministry of Sports, had been and gone. It looked as if I was in the clear. But just to be on the safe side, as I waited in the foyer, I was careful to position myself in the shadow of a large potted plant where I kept my face partially hidden behind the collar of my coat.

  Much to my relief, Mr Choudhury was on time. Shortly after eight, he strode through the hotel doors and spotted me in my hiding place.

  “Everything’s in order,” he said confidently, as we made our way outside. “We leave immediately.”

  Mr Choudhury had arrived with two vehicles: his battered 1953 Land Rover which had a long wheel base, a khaki green canvas roof, a winch at the front and extra jerry cans of petrol mounted on the back; and a white Hindustan Ambassador, India’s answer to the Volkswagen Beetle. Modelled on the 1950s Morris Oxford and built like a tank, it is the only indigenous car tough enough to survive India’s pot-holed national highways.

  The hunter had brought along a small entourage that included two drivers and two guards on loan from the Forest Department who were arme
d with sub-machine guns for our protection against militants.

  “We’ll be driving all night. Let’s take turns sleeping on the back seat of the Ambassador,” said Mr Choudhury as my bags were placed in the boot of the car. “Tarquin, you sleep first. I’ll go in the Land Rover and we’ll swap in a few hours.”

  The driver opened the back door of the car. I was about to get inside when I heard my name – or rather its Indian version – being called out hysterically.

  “Mr Halls! Mr Halls!”

  A man in a purple tracksuit was running towards the car.

  “I am Banerjee,” he panted as he came to a stop.

  I had guessed as much already. I turned to face him.

  “Yes, Mr Banerjee? I’m in a bit of a rush. What can I do for you?”

  He stood in front of me, his head bowed, his hands pushed together to form the traditional Hindu namaste, or greeting.

  “Most terribly sorry for disturbing,” he apologized, wobbling his head and shuffling his feet. “Are you really Mr Halls?”

  I nodded my head nervously, expecting the worst.

  “Well, I am most avid fan of British soccer. Please to be giving your autograph.”

  He thrust a notepad and pen towards me, his brown eyes pleading to make his wish come true. My mind was reeling. Not for the first time in India I was completely baffled by the events taking place around me. Numbly, I reached for the biro and, steadying the pad, signed my name, making sure that it was illegible.

  “Thanking you, thanking you very much, Mr Halls,” said Mr Banerjee, backing away from me. He bounced on his heels with excitement, his head bowed to the ground. I thought I noticed tears in his eyes.

  “This is the greatest day of my life, Mr Halls! Thanking you! Thanking you!”

  Mr Choudhury was standing next to his Land Rover, his eyebrows raised in astonishment. I caught his gaze and, as I did so, he tilted his head to one side.

  “Who was that?” he asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Oh, just one of my fans,” I replied.

  ♦

  Across Guwahati, the electricity had been cut off, throwing the city into darkness. Residents stood about in the streets like spectators watching an eclipse. While they waited expectantly for the power to be turned back on, children played in the moonlight and elderly people huddled around fires burning inside empty oil drums. Along the main road, lanterns hung outside shop fronts. On the pavements, the proprietors of the larger stores revved up their petrol generators, deafening passers-by.

  Even the city’s traffic lights had failed and the police were trying to direct the rush-hour traffic with torches. Vegetable stands were doing business by candlelight, dozens of flames twinkling in the gloom. Outside a cinema showing an Indian version of Mrs Doubtfire entitled Aunty Number One, angry customers, furious that the film had been interrupted, were demanding their money back. Down the road, a street-poster vendor who sold pin-ups of busty Bombay film actresses alongside garish paintings of Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, Jesus Christ and the usual Hindu deities, was doing a roaring trade by the light of his car headlights.

  As we inched our way through the traffic, I caught glimpses of advertisements for everything from Tipsy Beer to East Wood Cigarettes, ‘MOUNTAIN SPRING WATER, THE SWEAT TASTE’, announced one poster. Next to it, a billboard promoted a certain brand of local soap as being the best ‘FOR THOSE PRIVATE MOMENTS’.

  Towards the edge of the city, we passed the Boogie Woogie Dance School where anyone with two hundred and fifty rupees to spare could learn to ‘get down like Michael Jackson’. Next to it stood the Double Digest Restaurant. A mile on, I spotted the Good Luck Driving School which promised graduates a ‘chance of survival’.

  We passed out of the city limits and into the surrounding hills. A sign on the side of the road, erected by Assam’s Department of Transport, warned: “YOU ARE NOW ENTERING AN ACCIDENT PRONE ZONE.” The large number of chewed-up cars and squashed truck cabs that lay abandoned on the side of the road – perhaps left there as a warning to others – were proof that Highway 37 was indeed hazardous, if not a deathtrap. More of Assam’s dogs lay about on the tarmac in various stages of decomposition.

  According to my driver Rudra, who described them as ‘bad mens’, it was generally the truck-drivers who were responsible for the inordinate number of accidents and deaths. Most of them were said to be on drugs, which they took to help them stay awake on long journeys. Only that morning, there had been a head-on collision. “Both mens become like jams,” said Rudra.

  Highway 37 wound its way through the hills and down into the Brahmaputra valley. Knowing that in India there is an accident every minute and a death on the roads every eight minutes, I sat back in my seat, making sure that I was unable to see the road ahead. If something was going to kill me, I preferred not to have to see it coming.

  I had been looking forward to talking to Mr Choudhury and getting to know him better on the journey, and I was disappointed that I wasn’t sitting next to him. Tired, I attempted to put such thoughts out of my head. Instead, I reached into my backpack and took out a collection of short stories and essays by George Orwell. I turned on the light and flicked through until I found his acclaimed piece, ‘Shooting an Elephant’. With the car bouncing over pot-holes, keeping my eyes on the words wasn’t easy. The story is set in Moulmein in Lower Burma where Orwell worked as a police officer. As a colonial, he was despised by the local population. One day while he was on duty, a trained elephant went beserk. Rather than lose face amongst the natives, Orwell decided to shoot it. But all he had available was a small-bore rifle, a weapon wholly inadequate for such a task. Despite this the first shot found its mark.

  He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frightful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed like a long time – it might have been five seconds, I dare say – he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time.

  That was the shot that did him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in falling he seemed for a moment to rise. For as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upwards like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skywards like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.

  Assuming I managed to talk Mr Choudhury into allowing me on the hunt I would see the same sad sight. I would see an elephant die.

  A lump formed in my throat as Orwell’s imagery flashed again and again across my mind and suddenly, feelings of revulsion and guilt swept over me. Surely elephants, animals we regard with awe, endangered the world over, should not be gunned down? Couldn’t the rogue be captured, sedated and released elsewhere? But what of the people the rogue had killed? By all accounts, the victims’ families were baying for his blood. Surely they deserved justice. No human being would be let off such crimes.

  Even so, as I switched off the light and drifted into sleep, I pictured the tusker on his own in the darkness somewhere in northern Assam. And I found myself hoping that he would disappear deep into the jungle – far away, where Mr Choudhury would not be able to find him.

  2

  The Game Is Afoot

  “If you roamed every continent for thousands of years, coming to consider the globe your own private football, and you were then confined to an open prison…you too might become unbalanced.”

  Heathcote Williams, Sacred Elephant

  Rudra, the driver of the Hindustan Ambassador, had been chewing paan all night. He kept his stash in a stainless steel dabba, an Indian lunchbox, in the glov
e compartment and periodically would ask me to take it out and open it for him. Keeping one eye on the road, he would first extract a lump of lime paste with his index finger and smear it into the space between his teeth and his bottom lip. He would then pop one or two choice chunks of betel nut into his mouth. Finally, uttering a satisfied grunt, he would start to chew.

  Rudra was clearly an addict. He had the desperate eyes of a junkie and had consumed so much paan over the years that his gums, tongue and lips were permanently stained a luminous red. His teeth had turned jet black at the roots, and when he grinned he looked like a prize-fighter who had just taken a beating in the ring.

  Admittedly, his addiction was not as anti-social as some others I could think of, but having to watch him spit out of the window every other minute and wipe the drool from his chin with his shirtsleeve was something I would rather have done without, especially at four in the morning. Still, I took comfort from the fact that something in the betel nut seemed to be keeping him awake.

  By Indian standards, Rudra was a good driver – that is to say, we only came close to death once during more than six hours on the road. But his vehicle’s shock absorbers were defunct and many of the back seat’s springs had come loose. As a result, I had managed only a few hours of continually interrupted sleep before midnight when Mr Choudhury turfed me off the back seat and put me in front with Rudra.

  By now, I was in no mood for conversation. All I wanted to do was sleep. I tried conveying this to Rudra, but even when I closed my eyes and pretended to snore, he kept up his one-sided, tedious conversation. His main interest in life, apart from betel nut and playing chicken with oncoming heavy goods vehicles, was the vital statistics of Bombay’s Hindi film actresses. The latest goddess to grace the Indian screen, Karisma Kapoor, had won a special place in his heart – and, no doubt, in his fantasies.