To the Elephant Graveyard

by Hall, Tarquin

  The crowd rushed forward, brushing aside the guards who tried, in vain, to hold them back. In the confusion, two men fell into the grave, but they quickly scrambled out for fear of being tainted by the animal’s bad spirit. Some of the women started to cry and wail, throwing blossoms into the grave. One woman fainted and had to be carried out of the crowd. For a time, Mr Choudhury was worried that, in such a hysterical state, the crowd might turn on us. But in time they calmed down and the funeral continued.

  Stepping up to the grave, Churchill lit some incense-sticks, which he stuck in the ground. Muttering something in Khasi, his native language, he then split open a coconut with his machete and sprinkled the milk over the body.

  “What did you say?” I asked him, when he had finished.

  “Just few words, no?” replied Churchill. “There is no tradition burying hathi. But Hindu peoples, they love the ceremony. That is why we do this, no?”

  Next, six barrels of diesel, which had been carried to the clearing by the kunkis earlier that morning, were rolled forward by the labourers and positioned by the graveside. One by one, these rusting metal containers were opened and the contents were emptied into the grave – a final deterrent to poachers who, it was feared, might strip the carcass of its flesh and sell the meat in the market.

  The contents glugged from the containers and splattered down on to the animal. Inch by inch, his dusty grey skin was covered, pools of the liquid bubbling up around him as it seeped into the earth.

  As the last drops dripped from the barrels, Mr Choudhury stepped forward, holding a garland of marigolds in both hands. Solemnly, he knelt at the foot of the grave and slowly lowered the flowers on to the rogue’s body. Then he stood up and, turning away, instructed the labourers to start shovelling in the earth.

  ♦

  With the rogue finally buried, Churchill, Mole and the apprentices were anxious to return to their respective homes on the north bank of the Brahmaputra. Back at the camp after the funeral, they wasted little time in packing up their belongings.

  “Mrs Mahout, she will be wanting money for food. She eating very much, no?” joked Churchill.

  Mr Choudhury and I accompanied the squad to the edge of the jungle where Rudra was waiting for us with the Land Rover. It was here that we finally went our separate ways.

  “Tarwin, I not like say goodbye,” said Churchill. “So I not say anything, no?”

  Instead, the mahout handed me a gift wrapped in a page of the Assam Sentinel. Tearing open the newspaper, I discovered a bracelet made from thick, wiry hairs plucked from Raja’s tail. It was a replica of the bands worn by the mahouts and their apprentices. I slipped the gift on to my wrist.

  “Tarwin, now you part of elephant squad,” pronounced the mahout. “Don’t forget. I am teaching you many thing. When you go London, ride hathi. Very much cheaper than car, no?”

  I thanked the mahout for his touching present and he shook me warmly by the hand. Then, without another word, he mounted his elephant.

  The others stepped forward. Badger, who had decided to remain with the squad for the foreseeable future, wished me “the best of luck, mate”, and Mole invited me to visit his headquarters “any time, man. It’ll always be a pleasure.”

  Last but not least, I bade farewell to the kunkis, presenting each of them with a tin of travel sweets taken from the depths of my backpack. Greedily they ate the contents, coating the tips of their trunks in powdered sugar, so that they looked like junkies snorting cocaine.

  “Okay, now we go,” said Churchill.

  The squad moved off in the direction of the Brahmaputra River and the Tezpur suspension bridge. From the tops of the kunkis, Mole, Badger and the others looked back, waving to me, while the elephants saluted with their trunks.

  I waited by the Land Rover, watching them trudge towards the horizon, overcome by a sense of loss and sadness. Standing there, I realized that after my travels with Churchill and the team, work was going to be more tedious than ever, and I felt the urge to run after the kunkis, climb up on Raja and continue my adventures with the inimitable elephant squad. But I knew that, before too long, I must return to my job in Delhi.

  Reluctantly, I turned and climbed into the Land Rover. Rudra shifted into four-wheel drive and headed across the fields towards the nearest dirt road. The car shook and the engine strained. But when I closed my eyes, I could still sense the gentle rocking motion of Raja beneath me.

  ♦

  I had hoped to try to find the man mentioned by the Assamese Sikhs and ask him about the Pool of Ganesha. But Mr Choudhury wanted to head back to Guwahati. As Rudra gunned the Land Rover east along the highway, I sat in the front seat and Mr Choudhury reclined in the back, pleased at last to be heading home.

  The elephant ‘season’, harvest time, when the herds caused the most havoc in the fields, was over, he explained, and he planned to spend the next month with his family. His eldest daughter’s birthday was only a few days away, and shortly after that his brother was arriving from Kenya.

  “Life goes on, is it not so?” he said.

  However, before returning home, the hunter wanted to make a short detour.

  “There is someone you must meet. He is very special to me and I am sure he will be able to help you,” he said.

  “Help me? How?”

  “His name is Geala. He knows everything there is to know about elephants,” said Mr Choudhury. “I feel sure that he will be able to help you find the elephant graveyard.”

  I sat up straight and turned around in my seat to face the hunter.

  “Really? That’s wonderful,” I spluttered. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  Mr Choudhury shrugged his shoulders.

  “If I had told you, then you would not have bothered trying to find out for yourself. Knowledge is useless without effort.”

  “So who is this person?” I asked.

  “He taught me everything I know about elephants. For want of a better term, he is my guru. But professionally, he is – or was – a phandi, probably the greatest elephant-catcher that ever lived, and one of the last now alive.”

  Mr Choudhury took out his Survey of India map of Assam and spread it out, pointing to where the phandi lived for Rudra’s benefit.

  “His home is on the edge of the Karbi Anglong hills. It is in an area cut off from the rest of the world,” said the hunter. “Let us hope he is at home. He still keeps one or two elephants and sometimes he goes off with them for weeks at a time.”

  It was mid-afternoon as we turned off the highway. In the distance, steep slopes rose above the tea gardens, the tops of the green hills lost in low cloud. A dusty dirt track led through a pine forest, planted in regimented rows for miles at a stretch. Emerging on the other side, Rudra shifted once again into four-wheel drive and headed cross-country along a grassy riverbank lined with fishermen.

  At the foot of the hills, we stopped in front of a compound surrounded by a high bamboo wall. Two Assamese girls sat outside the front gate combing each other’s hair, while a small boy played with the metal rim of a bicycle wheel, rolling it along the ground like a hoop. All three of them took one look at the Land Rover and began squealing Mr Choudhury’s name, running over to the vehicle and clamouring for the hunter’s attention.

  “This is Panipat, Banian and Hema,” he said, scooping the two girls up in his arms. “They are just a few of the phandis grandchildren. As you will see, he has a very large family.”

  With the girls clinging to him affectionately, Mr Choudhury pushed open the gates and we walked inside. Four mud and straw huts were arranged in a circle around a stone well. Over the well a wooden bucket hung from a winch, dripping water on to the sun-baked earth. Ducks and chickens pecked about in the shadow of a hutch used to store rice, which stood on stilts to prevent rodents from getting inside.

  Sitting on a flagstone, positioned outside the door of the smallest of the four huts, two women sat scouring pots with coconut husks. A young boy swept around them,
using a brush made from stiff reeds, a cloud of ochre-coloured dust forming at his feet.

  On the opposite side of the compound, an elderly elephant, a makhna or tuskless male, stood tethered to a post munching on a banana tree, bunches of leaves protruding from his mouth. With rheumy eyes and a wise, furrowed brow, he was a distinguished-looking animal. His ears were great floppy affairs that had lost much of their shape, and his jowls sagged in great folds below his chin as his few remaining teeth worked on his afternoon snack.

  To the right of the elephant crouched the phandi. He was busy chopping up a pile of fodder with a machete. As we approached, he looked up and his face immediately broadened into a wide smile. Then he leapt up and gave the hunter a hug, lifting him off the ground with his arms.

  “This is Geala,” said Mr Choudhury, introducing us. “He is my best friend in the world.”

  The phandi bowed to me gracefully, his eyes not leaving my face, and then he shook my hand enthusiastically.

  “Welcome to my home. Come and meet my elephant Toomai,” he said, Mr Choudhury translating his words. “He is almost as old as I am.”

  We walked over to the kunki’s area of the compound, where the old boy was now tucking into a bucket of millet.

  “He is much smarter than me,” continued Geala. “Lately, he has learned to unfasten his chain by undoing the nut and bolt with the tip of his trunk. Of course, he does not run away, but he likes to wander off.”

  Leaving us to become acquainted, Geala went over to one of the huts and soon re-emerged with a plate of coconut ladoos.

  “You must be hungry,” he said, offering the plate.

  Then he hurried over to the well, where he quickly filled a bucket of water and carried it to Toomai.

  For someone in his seventies, the phandi seemed to have boundless energy. But unlike his kunki, he did not look his age. Indeed, far from being old and wrinkled, his skin was supple and he was also remarkably fit.

  “I caught Toomai in 1942,” said our host, as we admired the elephant. “He put up a great fight and it took me many hours. He was very hard to train. It took me weeks to convince him that his wild days were finally at an end. At the time, I knew this was a good sign. If an elephant struggles during the breaking period, then he will make a good kunki. So it was with Toomai, who has been a faithful companion – and friend – ever since.”

  I worked out that the elephant was at least sixty years old.

  “That’s about right,” replied the phandi. “He can expect to live for another ten years. Elephants have roughly the same lifespan as humans, although their memory lasts to their dying day.

  “Last year, I fell from him and was knocked unconscious in the forest many, many miles from here. He picked me up, laid me over his back and then, in the middle of the night, carried me for over thirty miles until he reached our home. Placing me by the gate, he roused everyone from their beds and waited outside my door until I was better.”

  The phandi’s wife, a happy woman who giggled almost continuously, called to us from the middle of the compound where wooden stools had been arranged around a fire. We sat down and she and two of her grandchildren served us tea in shallow clay cups, together with muri ladoo, puffed rice balls, and tilar ladoo, sesame balls.

  I was anxious to ask the phandi about the legend of the elephant graveyard. However, before an opportunity presented itself, our host, at Mr Choudhury’s instigation, began to tell us about his experiences catching elephants in Assam’s now depleted jungles.

  “I am a Khamati, from the Sadiya district of Upper Assam. We have always owned many elephants, supplying them to kings, princes and armies across India for thousands of years,” he began proudly. “I was only a young boy when my father took me to see elephants being caught for the first time. Dozens of mahouts and phandis had congregated in the jungle. They were tough, colourful men, and at times they could be a rough lot. But they lived for their trade and knew no other way.

  “In the middle of the jungle, they had built a huge stockade, made of giant bamboo. I will never forget standing there and hearing the words hathi porise – the elephants are coming. Suddenly, from out of the trees, I heard a great crashing and rumbling, and the ground seemed to shake. Then a herd of forty or more elephants stampeded into the stockade, chased by a team of expert phandis on their kunkis.

  “Quickly, the gates were closed behind them and the animals were trapped. The elephants realized this and tried to smash their way out. Amongst them, there was a huge Ganesha, a male elephant with only one tusk. He battered his great head against the door, pounding and pounding, desperate to escape back into the jungle. The other elephants trumpeted, bellowed and roared. I thought I might go deaf listening to them.”

  “What happened next?” I asked.

  “Given time, the animals grew tired and calmed down,” continued Geala. “Then, the phandis started to rope the younger elephants that they wanted to keep and led them away to the training depot, the pilkhana. The other elephants were set free and returned to the jungle. The mahouts were always careful never to deplete their numbers and of course, in those days, the herds were free to wander virtually wherever they liked.”

  As Geala explained, there were four acceptable ways of catching elephants in India, all of them laid down in ancient texts. The first method, which he had already described, had been developed by the Aryans and was called khedda, or stockade, a Sanskrit word derived from khet, meaning to drive.

  The second, which originated in southern India, made use of a pit and was considered the most primitive and potentially harmful technique. The third involved laying a noose on the jungle floor and then waiting for an elephant to put its foot in the right spot.

  “And the last was developed by the Assamese. It is called mela shikar,” he said proudly. “Using tame elephants, two phandis would isolate a calf from the herd and lasso the animal with ropes made of jute. This could be very difficult because usually the wild ones would run away and you had to chase after them. Sometimes, the older elephants came after you, too, and many times phandis would be killed.”

  Mr Choudhury explained that Geala had been apprenticed as an elephant-catcher while still a teenager, working his way up to bor phandi, or great catcher. Over the years, he became something of a legend, catching more elephants than any other phandi of his generation and working with the likes of P.D. Stracey and A.J.W. Milroy, British former heads of the Forest Department. During various periods of his career, he was employed in Burma and Sumatra, which used to have sizeable elephant populations, as well as on the Andaman Islands, in the Bay of Bengal, where the British transported kunkis in the 1940s.

  “Geala is the only phandi who has ever lassoed two wild elephants at once,” said the hunter. “It is a feat that has never been repeated, although many have tried.”

  “Now, all the phandis are gone and most of the mahouts along with them,” said Geala sadly. “All those days are at an end. Nothing will bring them back.”

  Our host suddenly appeared subdued. Silence fell over our small company, broken intermittently by the sound of twigs crackling in the fire and Toomai munching behind us.

  Quietly, I waited, staring into the flames, longing to ask the phandi about the elephant graveyard but not wanting to be the one to interrupt his quiet reflections.

  Eventually, however, I could wait no longer and, speaking in a voice just above a whisper, I asked our host whether he could help me find the fabled cemetery.

  Mr Choudhury translated my words.

  “Do you really want to find this place?” asked the phandi.

  “Yes,” I replied, “very much.”

  For a minute or so, he considered my request, consulting with Mr Choudhury. Then he looked me straight in the eye.

  “I know its location,” he said at last. “I know it only too well.”

  I felt a rush of adrenalin. The elephant graveyard was real after all, I thought.

  “Would it be possible to go there?” I asked hesitant
ly.

  “Oh, yes, I will take you there. But first, let us eat. My wife has prepared a meal in your honour.”

  ♦

  Mrs Geala had made her speciality, patat diya mas, fish cooked in a banana leaf with mustard seeds. This and other dishes were laid out on the floor of one of the huts where we gathered after washing our hands at the well. Fragrant rice seasoned with cloves and cumin was heaped on to my plate, along with pungent, spicy chicken cooked with papaya. Afterwards, kheer, or rice pudding, was served in tiny steel bowls.

  But the food was wasted on me. Throughout the meal, all I could think about was finding the elephant graveyard, but I had to bide my time until our plates were taken away. Then the phandi jumped up from where he had been sitting.

  “There are only a couple of hours of daylight left,” he said. “If you want to see the graveyard, then we must hurry.”

  Picking up my camera bag, I followed him out of the door. Mr Choudhury was just a few steps behind me. We crossed the compound, pushed through the gates, ran up a grassy bank and then crossed a rickety rope bridge that spanned the river.

  Once on the other side, Geala marched barefoot along a pathway that led through the jungle and up into the hills. Gradually, the terrain grew steeper and steeper, and soon I found myself clambering along on all fours, completely out of breath. Two or three times, I stopped to rest. But the phandi, who did not falter once, kept up his relentless pace.

  “Once it is dark, you will not be able to see it,” he said. “There is no time to waste.”

  Mustering the last of my strength, I stumbled on, with Mr Choudhury bringing up the rear. Sweat streamed down my face, soaking my shirt and trousers, and stinging my eyes. The muscles in my legs began to stiffen and weaken. By the time I got to the top I was completely exhausted.

  For several minutes, I lay on the ground, trying to catch my breath, my heart pounding against my chest. When I sat up, the phandi was standing on the edge of the hill, which afforded a panoramic view of the Brahmaputra valley below.