by Ruskin Bond
TUSKER TALES
TUSKER TALES
Edited by
Ruskin Bond
Published in 2010 by
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Contents
Blowing My Own Trumpet • Surendra Mohanty
Holi, the Elephant • Brijendra Singh
Toomai of the Elephants • Rudyard Kipling
In the Jaws of a Lion • A True Incident
The Elephant and the Cassowary • Ruskin Bond
The Vengeance of Kurnail Jarn • Jan Kinnsale
A Short Story about an Elephant
Down Elephant Street • K.M. Eady
A Superannuated Elephant • W.G. Adam
The Pale One • John Eyton
Kafa, the Furious One • Peggy Albrecht
Poo Lorn the Terrible • Reginald Campbell
Blowing My Own Trumpet
Surendra Mohanty
t three and half tonnes, I am the largest living being that walks the earth. No, I am not counting those swimming beings. When you float, you can bloat to any size. But on land, it's a different story; your legs got to carry your weight and it's only so much you can grow up to. So here I am, standing ten feet tall on all fours, and there is none more mammoth in size than me. I am the Indian Elephant.
For my bulk, I should be rather an ungainly hulk. Quite the contrary, I am remarkably lithe. I can run, swim and can even stand on one leg, any leg—fore, hind, left or right—any. Don't believe me? Go to the circus and see me perform. So much about my acrobatics; here's the rest of my story. When I say my story, I speak for of all elephantkind—singly or collectively.
I have fought wars, many a glorious wars, alongside humans. We were called upon by humans to fight for them, and at the same time, against them. It's beyond my comprehension why mankind must wage wars against itself. Anyway, they roped me into their feuds. What they always forget is, it is I who made the difference in their struggle for whatever.
Just the sight of a whole line of elephants standing in shining armour was intimidating enough for the enemy to retreat. And if that didn't work, trumpeting through their rank and file we created enough confusion and melee for any of their battle plans to succeed. Don't believe me? That's because your historians haven't recorded our entire story. Alexander didn't retreat from India, in 326 BC, merely because his men were too exhausted, but because he was too unnerved about facing the war elephants. He knew, if he pushed deeper into India, he would be battling against thousands of my kind. Never mind his winning streak, he was quite capable of taking on infantry and cavalry, but elephantry was not something he was prepared to face.
And have you forgotten Hannibal? His conquests into the Roman territory in 218 BC? His army crossed the Alps along with elephants. Poor brethren of ours, the rigorous journey killed many of them. But those that arrived were instrumental in Hannibal's victory. The Roman army was overawed by the sight of such gigantic warriors.
So, quite naturally, I am the proud possession of the royalty. I have won them wars and territories. Besides, who else can afford me? What's more, I play a role in the royalty's indulgence. I adorn regal palaces and gardens. I go as gift from one sovereign to another. I go hunting with the royalty on my back. I fearlessly tread into lion territory. Who says the lion is the king of the jungle? A misplaced title—I am the undisputed lord of the jungle. Don't believe me? Try getting a lion to trespass my territory. No sane lion will dare come close to my elephantine feet and huge trunk.
To see me in all my royal resplendence, you must watch the Dussehra Festival at the Mysore Palace in September and October. You could also visit the annual festival of 'Pooram' in Kerala. That's in April. Hundreds of beautifully caparisoned elephants decorated in gold ornaments move in divine processions, swaying their trunks to the thousands of tourists that flock to see these festivals.
Which other being can boast of a trunk like ours? All muscles; so strong, I can pick a log half my body weight with my trunk and carry it miles. Yet so supple, I can accept a peanut from a child's palm. I can fell trees with a mere shove of my trunk, and I can lift the mahout ever so delicately and place him on my shoulders.
Trunk is not the only fascinating part of my body. My tusks are equally charming. They weigh 40 kilograms each. Some people think the ivory is more useful in their hands than on me. They simply take them away, sometimes by killing us. Now, is there any need for such brutality? These are just my teeth!
Even divinity comes naturally to me. I am associated with Goddess Lakshmi and am considered the harbinger of wealth and good fortune. Ask any mahout and he will tell you how he earns his living. He depends on the spiritual folks who beseech my blessings and pay obeisance with money and food. Now, it is another thing that the food is shared by the mahout, who also keeps all the money. After all, I have to earn his keep.
In the form of Airavata, I am the vehicle of Indra, the king of Gods. Lord Ganesha, before whom a whole world bows down its head, wears my head. And listen to this sad story of Ashwathama, my Grandma once told me. In the battle of Kurukshetra, one warring side killed an innocent elephant named Ashwathama just to fool the general on the opposite side into believing that his son (also named Ashwathama) was dead. The tricked general, otherwise invincible, was so crestfallen, after hearing the news, that he was easily routed. I sometimes wonder on whom the trick was played—the general or the poor elephant!
And one of my clans is called the white elephant—not really so white except for some discoloured patches of white. He is considered a priceless possession of the Thai royalty. So priceless, he has earned a reputation for ruining his master to bankruptcy!
Among all the sports, the ones I enjoy the most are those that I play with humans—elephant-polo and tug-of-war. The first one is quite similar to polo on horseback except that we pachyderms replace the equines. The polo stick is proportionately longer. The second game, tug-of-war, is between men and me. There are countless people on one end of a rope pitted against me, singly. Who do you think wins? Invariably I, every time.
You might wonder how I remember all this, from the ancient days till today. We elephants have a capacious memory. We remember everything, especially the wrongs done to us. It is said, 'women and elephants never forget'. Who said that?—ofcourse, a woman, Dorothy Parker.
In the animal kingdom the ant is my best friend. People seem to take quite a fancy towards our alliance, possibly because of the disparity in our sizes. They have conjured up plenty of jokes involving us. One goes like this. An ant and I, being good friends, went swimming to the pool. Whenever the ant swam I stayed out of the pool and, similarly, when I went in to swim, he stayed out. Of course, the pool was big enough for
both of us. Why, then, one of us had to stay out of the pool all the time? Because, it seems, we shared a single costume. Now, whoever cooked up the tale had a wicked sense of humour.
There are folktales galore that glorify me. One legend is very popular. People often cite it to bring home a moral. Six blind men feel different parts of my body and each gives a different version of what I am like, depending on where they touched. In the words of John Godfrey Saxe:
It was six men of Hindustan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
Though all of them were blind...
The one who touched my belly concludes I am like a wall; another who felt my leg says I am like a pillar. To another I appear like a spear, that's actually my tusk; while another, from the feel of my trunk, believes I am like a tree. The next blind man who got up to my ear likens me to a hand fan. The most ridiculous observation is I am like a rope. Hey, that's only my tail!
The moral—Don't wear blinders and jump into some conclusion. See the complete picture first.
Another chronicle from the Hindu Scriptures has me caught in the jaws of a huge crocodile, while I am bathing in a river with my consorts. Despite my entire struggle, I am unable to break free. Left with no hope for survival, I remember the Lord and pray fervently. Lord Vishnu appears Himself and slays the crocodile. All I can offer Him is a lotus. Hmm! After so much trumpeting, I learn my lesson in humility.
The author teaches English at the KIIT
International School, Bhubaneshwar
Holi, the Elephant
Brijendra Singh
he spoor showed that she had come from the Paterpani area, in the core zone of the Corbett National Park, carrying her dead calf all the way with her. This was evident from the drag, which appeared on occasion, when the elephant cow had become tired, with the heavy load hoisted in her mouth, and had lowered it to the ground, to rest. The wildlife coordination committee meeting between the states of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, that I was to have chaired at Amangarh, had been postponed, but since I was in the area I chose to spend a few days at Dhikala. It was 8 February 2009, and with some free time on hand, I asked the Range Officer Karmiyal to get Bare Bhai, the mahout to saddle Sona Kali, the wonderful elephant, that I had been instrumental in saving from tramping and scorching her sensitive feet on the blistering hot streets of Delhi. She was donated to the Corbett Park through a kind and concerned NGO. We were going to look for Jinx, the great-grandson of the famous Dhitoo, who now, happened to be the prime male tiger in the Dhikala area.
It was late evening, a most beautiful time to be sitting on the Dhikala Tower, or below it, on the Sambar road, like we were, on elephant back. Many chital alarm calls could be heard near the Hathi Bata and a number of tourists, already aware of the calls, sat in their vehicles, waiting for a tiger to cross the Ramganga river, always a thrilling and unforgettable sight. Today, the tiger was unlikely to oblige anyone. Perhaps he was lying up with a kill, or for 'tigerish' reasons of his own, chose to stay out of sight. Decades of jungle experience tells us that in the forest nothing can be taken for granted. And just when you think you know it all—the jungle proves you wrong. The tiger did not cross the river.
Since we were already across the river, I nudged Bare Bhai, to check out a group of 14 elephants on our near side. The pachyderms had formed a wagon-wheel and were surprisingly quiet, even the young ones were extraordinarily inactive and not up to their usual pranks. This was strange. As we got a bit closer, through my binoculars I could see the matriarch fondling 'Holi,' a younger cow with a hole in her left ear. This in all probability had been punched out by a bullet in the Kandi area on the periphery of the park where she had been crop raiding a few monsoons ago. That the bullet had missed her head or other vitals had been a matter of sheer luck.
The matriarch of the elephant herd, who was bigger and taller than Holi, showed no interest at all in her own little calf at her heels but continued to caress and say something to the younger cow. Not by infra-sound, with which they normally communicate, but by the more endearing expression of touch. The tip of her trunk wandered to Holi's wet eyes and then into her mouth and then along the length of the trunk. This expression and ceaseless caressing and fondling and the body language itself, as we were to find out later, was her way of consoling the younger cow—perhaps, even more touching and humane, than what we humans are capable of, in times of bereavement. As our elephant closed, we saw that the elephants were standing over a very young, dead, male elephant calf. How the little calf had died is any one's guess—but, he had died a few days after birth, as my experience and that of the seasoned mahouts accompanying me told us. The herd now moved off a bit and waited for Holi who remained rooted to the spot. It must have been the inaudible infra-sound call of the matriarch, unheard by us, that finally made her turn and follow the other elephants for a bit before stopping and standing absolutely still. It was obvious to us that she was thinking and after contemplating for a while longer she abruptly pirouetted, strode back purposefully to the dead calf, bent her head down to the ground, picked up the baby with her mouth, turned around and walked back to the waiting elephants and soon, the great elephant silhouettes faded into the darkness of the advancing night. Unbelievable! What we had just witnessed was just incredible. In decades of being with elephants, never, in my experience had I witnessed such an occurrence. It was touching, heartbreaking and sad. One could just not fathom this magnitude of attachment displayed between a mother and her dead baby. I had seen a rhesus monkey mother carry her dead baby around, but that was not uncommon. This, on the other hand, was something else. I had been privy to an extraordinary event. With heavy hearts and sympathy for Holi, we returned, to camp.
On 9 February 2009, early in the morning, I decided to catch up with the elephant herd again and see what Holi had done with her dead calf. This time, mounted on Pavan Pari with Namdar her mahout, we were attracted by elephants 'bell-o-roaring' in the early dawn, somewhere near the Phulai watchtower. Tiger, we thought. Perhaps, a tiger had followed the herd and was trying to snatch the dead elephant baby away from the mother. Namdar goaded Pavan Pari on and soon we saw the elephants again, wagon-wheeled. The cause of the disturbance this time was a large male tusker that had come to check out the herd, to see if there was a cow in season. He soon lost interest in them and wandered off. We could still see the dead baby at Holi's feet and the matriarch comforting and caressing the younger cow and soon the scene of the previous evening was repeated. The herd moved off and Holi picked up the dead calf with her mouth and carried it away. Not wanting to disturb the already perturbed elephants we left them alone. This, surely is Kali Yug, as foretold by our ancient epics. Strange things will happen, the world will turn topsy-turvy. For us in the jungle even stranger things were happening. An elephant wandering around with her dead calf—unheard of. A tourist the other day had seen a pair of yellow-throated martens kill and eat a langur monkey and even filmed the event.
A labourer had been possessed by the spirit which lives in Phulai. A completely normal man the day before, he had gone totally crazy in the night and after fighting off eight men at the watchtower had run away into the darkness and there was no trace of him. This was very worrying, as he could have been killed by a tiger or an elephant (and then an animal, would have to be unnecessarily destroyed). He needed to be located at once. The director of the park, Vinod Singhal had arrived and we decided to comb the whole area for the missing man. The entire day was devoted to the search, but the man was not found and we could only hope for the best and prayed that he had wandered off home. But all this time, I could not help wondering, what Holi and the elephants were doing.
On the morning of 10 February, I decided to go and look for Holi again. This event had upset us a great deal, even the seasoned mahouts and the Range Officer. How would it affect the other elephants in the herd? Would the other babies be more vulnerable to tigers, as the herd's movement had slowed and was restricted?
Would Holi starve herself to death? She had not eaten since we had seen her. Should we try and take the dead baby away to lessen the trauma it was causing her and the herd? These were the questions we asked ourselves. We caught up with the elephants again and they behaved in exactly the same manner as they had done before. Holi would not give up the dead calf, the matriarch continued to comfort her and we decided to leave them alone and see what nature would hold in store for the elephants, in the following days. It rained very heavily that night, the skies had burst out as never before. Rain, bringing new life and hope, poured into the parched jungle which was tinder-dry as the winter rains had failed. In the morning the sun came up but there was no trace of Holi and the elephant herd. There was water everywhere. It seemed, that the heavens too had wept for Holi and her dead calf.
The author is an Honorary Wildlife Warden at
Corbett National Park
Toomai of the Elephants
Rudyard Kipling
I will remember what I was. I am sick of rope and chain,
I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs.
I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugarcane,
I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs.
I will go out until the day, until the morning break,
Out to the winds' untainted kiss, the waters' clean caress:
I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket-stake,
I will revisit my lost loves, and playmates masterless!
ala Nag, which means Black Snake, had served the Indian government in every way that an elephant could serve it for forty-seven years, and as he was fully twenty years old when he was caught, that makes him nearly seventy—a ripe age for an elephant. He remembered pushing, with a big leather pad on his forehead, at a gun stuck in deep mud, and that was before the Afghan War of 1842, and he had not then come to his full strength. His mother, Radha Pyari—Radha, the darling—who had been caught in the same drive with Kala Nag, told him, before his little milk-tusks had dropped out, that elephants who were afraid always got hurt; and Kala Nag knew that the advice was good, for the first time that he saw a shell burst he backed, screaming, into a stand of piled rifles, and the bayonets pricked him in all his softest places. So, before he was twenty-five he gave up being afraid, and he was the best-loved and the best-looked-after elephant in the service of the Government of India. He had carried tents, twelve hundred pounds' weight of tents, on the march in Upper India; he had been hoisted into a ship at the end of a steam-crane and taken for days across the water, and made to carry a mortar on his back in a strange and rocky country very far from India, and had seen the Emperor Theodore lying dead in Magdala, and had come back again in the steamer, entitled, so the soldiers said, to the Abyssinian War Medal. He had seen his fellow-elephants die of cold and epilepsy and starvation and sunstroke up at a place called Ali Masjid, ten years later; and afterwards he had been sent down thousands of miles south to haul and pile big baulks of teak in the timber-yards at Moulmein. There, he had half-killed an insubordinate young elephant who was shirking his fair share of the work.
