“Finally, the elephants came out from the forest and went into the river. They stood side by side, their backs forming a bridge. Brahma was then able to cross without getting his feet wet. The god was very pleased and, in return for their help, he granted the elephants three gifts.”
The mahout counted them on his fingers. The first gift, he said, was that the elephants would be the wisest of all creatures. The second was that they would know the time of their death. The third was a place, hidden from the eyes of men, where the elephants would be able to go to die in peace.
“Where is this place?” I asked Baba. “How can I find it?”
His one good eye widened and stared at me.
“I’m not sure I can remember,” he said, stirring a stick in the fire. “My memory is bad these days.”
This was obviously a hint that he wanted more money. The only question was, how much? As a white man in India, I was used to paying double the normal rate, so I took out two hundred rupees and handed them to him.
“When I was a young man,” continued Baba, his memory now much improved, “I found the elephant graveyard.”
The other mahouts were clearly fascinated and moved closer.
“It is located on a barren hill where only one tree grows. At the summit, I found piles and piles of bones and tusks. They were lying about on the ground, carcass upon carcass, thousands of them. I could not believe my good fortune and decided to carry away as many tusks as I could manage.”
Choosing the best ivory, Baba made his way down the hill, his arms full. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself rich beyond his wildest dreams.
“But the path only led back up to the top. Again and again, I tried to walk down, only to find myself where I had begun. I was trapped.
“I thought I would die from starvation or thirst. In the end, I had to put the tusks down. Only then was I able to leave. Later, I tried to find the elephant graveyard again. But it was not there. It was as if it had disappeared.”
A general murmuring broke out amongst the audience as Baba rose and walked off into the darkness. While the mahouts chatted amongst themselves, discussing Baba’s words as if there were knowledge to be gleaned from them, I asked Mr Choudhury and Churchill what they made of it all.
Churchill believed there might be such a thing as an elephant graveyard because, in all his time in the jungle, he had never come across the carcass of a hathi that had died from natural causes.
“I see many animal, no? Monkey, bird, snake. One rhino. But hathi, no. Where he go? Perhaps to elephant graveyard. Yes, it may be right, no?”
Mr Choudhury had never seen an elephant carcass in the wild either, but he refused to comment on whether or not he believed in the existence of the mysterious cemetery.
Badger didn’t believe a word of it.
“It’s absolute bollocks. This bloke’s full of it,” he said.
Mole agreed.
“I’ve never heard so much baloney in all my life.”
♦
A feast was prepared in our honour. Bamboo poles stuffed with rice and roasted over the fire and generous helpings of mutton stew were loaded on to dried tobacco leaves that served as plates. The mahouts ate with their hands, moulding the rice into sticky balls and shovelling them into their mouths. This was an art which I had failed to master, preferring instead to use a plastic fork that I carried with me at all times.
As Baba finished eating, he asked Mr Choudhury how we planned to find the rogue. The hunter explained that Amu, the ranger, had offered to place a team of guards at our disposal.
“That will take a long time. Kaziranga is a big place,” pointed out Baba.
He licked his upper lip, touching the end of his nose with his tongue. Clearly, he was leading up to something.
“I could help you find the elephant,” he said. “You would know where he is by tomorrow morning.”
This was an interesting proposition. None of us relished the idea of traipsing through a hundred and sixty square miles of jungle and swampland. But how much was it going to cost? And, more important, how did Baba propose to find the elephant so quickly?
“That is easy. I will turn into a tiger,” replied the mahout nonchalantly. “Then I will go into the jungle and find the tusker.”
His suggestion was made as casually as an Englishman might comment on the weather. Yet no one around the fire batted an eyelid. Apparently, there was nothing unusual in Assam about people turning into tigers. Such talk was not considered a sign of madness – or at least not by my present company. Even Mr Choudhury didn’t flinch.
“How much?” was all the hunter asked.
This time, it was really going to cost us. Rupee signs were practically flashing in the mahout’s one good eye as he named his figure.
“Five hundred.”
The hunter and Churchill shrugged. Clearly they did not have the cash. If I wanted to see someone turn into a tiger it was up to me to pay. I pulled out the cash.
Baba grabbed the notes, giving them only a cursory glance before thrusting them down his trousers. Then, he drew a cellophane packet from a string bag and opened it, emptying a dozen nutmeg seeds on to the palm of his left hand. Reaching into another bag behind him, he next took out a stone pestle and mortar and methodically ground the seeds into a fine powder before adding some tobacco and a resin-like substance that he had extracted earlier from the bark of a rare tree.
“Now, you must all form a circle around me. Whatever happens, you must not pull away,” instructed the mahout. “If you do, it will have bad consequences.”
The others did as instructed but I hesitated. Ever since an incident over a ouija board at school, I had been wary of the occult.
“I’ll give this one a miss,” I said.
But even Badger insisted that I join in, pulling me into the circle. “Come on. This will be a laugh,” he said.
Once we were all in place, the mahout knelt in front of the fire in the centre of the circle.
“Do not touch me or try to wake me up. Do not be afraid. As long as you remain connected, you will not be hurt. Stay here until I am gone. Then you may go. You will have your answer by morning.”
With that, he placed the peculiar mixture on his tongue and closed his eyes.
“He go other place, no?” whispered Churchill.
“I think Baba’s already in his own special place,” I commented. “But when is he going to turn into a tiger?”
“Spirit taking over, tiger spirit. Very powerful, no?”
Baba’s lower lip began to quiver as if he was about to burst into tears. The muscles in his face started to twitch. His breathing grew faster, a rasping sound emanating from his chest. His hands shook in time with his nodding head. He tensed his arms and the veins in his wrists began to bulge. His expression grew taut and strained.
Then, something very strange happened. The mahout started to make a truly eerie noise, as painful as the sound of nails being dragged across a blackboard. At first, I imagined he was grating his teeth together, but his jaw was not moving, and besides, Baba had few teeth left to grind. Gradually, the sound grew louder and louder, as if it was being amplified through speakers. Then he fell to his hands and knees and began to circle the fire. He scratched at the earth with his fingernails and bucked like a bull, throwing his head back and yowling.
Suddenly he froze, his fingers bent like claws. He opened his eye, which was glazed over as if covered in a thin film. Foam oozed from his mouth. He curled up on the ground and rubbed his hands behind his ears. Then he sprang up and with a screech leapt out of the circle and scampered off into the darkness on all fours.
No sooner was he out of sight than Badger burst into laughter.
“That bloke is completely cracked,” he said.
“But where’s he gone?” I asked.
“Cloud Nineteen is my guess,” said the Gurkha.
“He go into forest, Tarwin,” said Churchill. “Find rogue.”
It was now well past midnight.
The other mahouts made their way to their tents. Behind them, in the moonlight, I could make out the silhouettes of their elephants.
Mr Choudhury rose to leave.
“Aren’t we going to wait for Baba?” I asked.
“We’ll discover whether he’s found our elephant tomorrow,” he said.
He sounded sceptical and somehow I could tell he didn’t believe in tiger-men. But he wasn’t about to say so in front of the others.
“Let’s go back to the hotel.”
We said our goodnights and made our way to the Land Rover. Behind us, Badger made cat yowls and, as we drove away, we could still hear him laughing.
♦
Back in the comfort of my room, I searched Elephant Gold to see if Stracey had written on elephant graveyards. Sure enough, I found various references to legends in Sri Lanka, where there is said to be a pachyderm cemetery near Adam’s Peak; and in Mysore, in southern India, where the Kurabas, who have traditionally enjoyed a rich elephant culture, likewise believe in the existence of a sacred graveyard. The book also tells of the mythical land of Jambu-dvipa, home to the magical mountain Vinataka, which is shaped like an elephant and believed by many to be their final resting-place.
Indian mythology, it seemed, was packed full of legends about elephants. In ancient times, the animals were known as hastin, or the beast that has an arm, and it was believed that they could fly. According to one fable, they were grounded by a powerful wizard when they accidentally dropped a branch on his head.
Hindus believe that the eight points of the compass are each guarded by an elephant, while in Buddhism white elephants are considered auspicious, because the Buddha was reincarnated as one, albeit with a silvery trunk and ‘six tusks of different hues’.
I closed the book and began to think over the events of the day, staring blankly at the revolving fan mounted on the ceiling.
Badger was right. Baba was as mad as they came. But I couldn’t help wondering whether there might be anything in the myth. Had it, like so many others, developed from some basis of fact?
As I turned off the light, I remembered a saying that I had heard in Afghanistan some years earlier: “The road to truth begins in the imagination of men.”
With this thought in mind, I closed my eyes, resolving to find out more about the legend of the elephant graveyard.
7
The Plot Thickens
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
“Hey, boss! Vake up! It’s late!”
The sound of this voice, together with the loud thumping on my hotel door, made me sit bolt upright in bed as if I had received an electric shock. I knew the voice only too well. It belonged to Vipal Ganguly, my Calcutta cameraman.
“Vakey, vakey, Boss!” came his voice again. “It is me. Your best friend, Vipal! Open up!”
For a few groggy moments, I remained trapped between dreamland and the conscious world, trying to figure out whether I was hallucinating. A further knock on the door confirmed that this was not the case. My nightmare was only just beginning.
“Boss, you in there? It’s six o’clock!”
The fact that Vipal was standing in the corridor filled me with a sense of alarm. Like no other person I had ever met, the Bengali had the capacity to drive me completely and utterly round the bend. But on many occasions in the past, he had done me enormous favours, twice helping me land scoops that had furthered my career. As a result, I owed him a debt of gratitude and, difficult as it often proved, went to great lengths not to hurt his feelings.
Wherever Vipal went, he was always guaranteed to pick up a herd of lackeys, helpers and hangers-on, all hard-luck cases desperate to get a break in journalism. On several occasions when I stayed in Calcutta, he had brought his friends along with him and together they had drunk the hotel mini-bar dry. The likelihood that he was now standing outside my hotel door on his own was next to zero.
“Open up, Boss,” he screeched, banging on the door. “Have no fear. Vipal is here!”
I lay on my bed, hoping he would go away. For a minute or two, there was silence, but then he started pounding on the door again.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered under my breath, burying my head under the pillow. “I don’t believe this is happening.”
“Come on, Boss. Open up!”
With no apparent alternative, I made my way to the door. Reluctantly, I opened it. Vipal stood there, his face no more than a few inches from mine. He smiled at me like a mischievous imp.
“Hel-loo, Boss!” he shouted, straight in my ear. “Surr-prrr-ise!”
He put up his fists like a boxer, playfully jabbing at my chest. “Hey, Boss, nice place,” he said, straining to look over my shoulder.
Then, like an uninvited relative making an unannounced visit, he pushed past me. As I had guessed, he was not alone. This time, Vipal’s entourage consisted of no less than seven meek-looking individuals who followed him inside, sheepishly filing past me. Before I could raise a word of objection, they settled themselves on various pieces of furniture around the room.
“Boss, this is Venky, Pratap, SP, Dalchan, Mister Jacob, Meraj and Supan. All my friends.”
They extended their hands towards me and I shook each one.
“What on earth are you doing here?” I asked Vipal, genuinely amazed and crossing my fingers that he didn’t know why I was in Assam. The last thing I wanted was the Bengali muscling in on the elephant hunt.
Vipal was giddy with excitement. He liked nothing better than a surprise. Stepping forward, he gave me an affectionate hug.
“Ha, ha, ha,” he said, winking as he sat on the end of my bed. “I am here, Boss.”
“Yes, I can see that you are here,” I said, trying to remain calm. “But how did you find me?”
“Ha, ha, ha,” he repeated.
I could feel my nerves tightening. First he had woken me at six in the morning, and now he was trying to be clever.
“No, really,” I continued, “how did you find me? No one knows where I am. Not even the Delhi office.”
“Oh, Boss,” he said, grinning, “I am saying to you so many times, I am having fifteen thousand friend.”
It was true that Vipal seemed to have contacts everywhere – he had an uncanny knack of getting to know people. Apparently, his network stretched even as far as the North-East Frontier.
“Well, it’s great to see you, Vipal,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic but still concerned about his motives for being there. “So what are you up to? Here for a holiday?”
“No, no, no. I am hearing that you are with eleey-pant. I love eleey-pant. So I made total journey from Cal to come with you.”
“Over my dead body,” I blurted out.
Fortunately, my words were drowned out by the television, which had suddenly been switched on. Grating South Indian music blared out in stereo, accompanied by the sight of a buxom, wide-hipped Tamil woman crawling across a daisy field clad in a wet and clinging chiffon sari. Furious, I snatched the remote-control from one of the lackeys and turned off the TV.
“Yes, I’m coming to hunt eleey-pant,” continued Vipal, pretending his ringers were a gun and play-shooting with them.
“Oh you are, are you?” I said, grinding my teeth. “And what makes you think that?”
“Because I am always wanting to travel on eleey-pant,” he replied innocently.
I could feel the rage building up inside me. At any moment, I might erupt. I stalked off to the bathroom to cool down and emerged, several minutes later, armed with a plan.
“So, Vipal, you’re coming with us. That’s great. We’ll have a lot of fun,” I said.
“Yes, yes. Eleey-pant is maximum fun,” he said, jumping up from the bed.
He pretended his arm was a trunk, dangling it from his face and making trumpet sounds. His friends joined in, mimicking him idiotically.
“The only problem is
,” I added, “it’s not up to me whether you come along. Only Mr Choudhury the hunter can give permission and he’s not an easy man to convince.”
It was hard to keep a note of triumph out of my voice.
“Oh, don’t worry, Boss,” said Vipal dismissively. “I am talking with Choudhury. He is inviting me.”
“What? You spoke with him?” I spluttered. “Who said you could do that? How do you know him?”
“I am knowing him maximum years,” replied Vipal, in a tone that implied this was common knowledge. He looked hurt by my outburst and pouted. “I am doing total package on him many, many times back,” he added shyly.
I slumped on to the bed and shook my head in disbelief. Like it or not, it looked as if Vipal would be tagging along – unless, of course, I could think of another way out.
Having cleared the room of my unwanted and uninvited guests, I washed and dressed and then made my way down to the restaurant. Mr Choudhury and Vipal stood at the breakfast buffet, selecting their food.
Seeing the two of them together brought home Vipal’s diminutive size. The Bengali measured no more than five feet, the top of his head coming level with my chest. He was scrawny and his clothes were far too large for him. His jeans, which hung about his legs in loose folds, were bunched up around his ankles, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up around his wrists.
Looking at him, it was difficult to imagine that for more than twenty years he had worked as a press photographer, and more recently as a video cameraman, spending his days battling it out in India’s vicious press scrums. He had covered famines, riots and countless insurrections. On the day Indira Gandhi was gunned down by her own bodyguards, Vipal was in Delhi on the city’s riot-torn streets taking pictures as angry mobs slaughtered thousands of innocent Sikhs.
“That was terrible time only. There was maximum bodies everywhere,” he once told me. “I got the total coverage. I was sending too many photos, Boss. They were printed in maximum newspapers.”
To the Elephant Graveyard Page 15
