BY THE TIME we reached the outskirts of Keonjhar it was dark and I was both hoarse from shouting commands and exhausted. Once an old British hill station, the town lay at some elevation and for the last ten miles I had forced Tara up steep inclines. After that the thought of spending the night under canvas was just too hideous to contemplate. I went to visit the Collector, a charming, easy-going man, who immediately arranged for us to sleep in the Circuit House, built by a former Maharaja of Keonjhar some eighty years ago, which was now usually reserved for visiting dignitaries and judges.
It was a splendid, solid example of English Colonial-cum-Indian palace architecture, spoilt only by a coat of vile mauve paint. We had the place to ourselves. After chaining Tara to a mango tree in the large, walled garden, we spread ourselves out in a suite of four rooms on the first floor leading on to a spacious veranda. It was surrounded by a pretty wrought-iron balcony, furnished with old-fashioned teak and wicker planters’ chairs with extending leg-rests, marble-topped ebony tables and, best of all, a large refrigerator which we quickly stocked with beer. As we sat looking out over the twinkling lights of Keonjhar, a white-coated attendant filled our glasses and looked disdainfully at Indrajit’s line of dripping clothes festooned around the balcony like mourning flags. Obviously he had been used to more respectable guests.
After the luxury of hot baths and a decent dinner, Aditya and I lay out in the long chairs in the darkness.
‘We might spend a few days here,’ he remarked, settling himself more comfortably and taking a long pull of beer. ‘We’re well on schedule and it would do us all good to take a rest,’ he added, noticing me trying to sit sideways in the chair.
‘No, I’m fine,’ I winced. ‘I think we should push on.’
‘As you wish. But I was really thinking of Tara. Bhim has told me she is a little under the weather.’
‘What?’ I said, falling into his carefully laid trap. ‘In that case, we must rest.’
Like Tara with her gur, Aditya had successfully discovered my Achilles’ heel. Unable to walk, I crawled over to the side of the balcony. I could just make her out, dusting herself happily while leaning up against the tree, with one back leg crossed over the other.
‘Goodnight, my love,’ I shouted. She turned, lifting her trunk, emitting a half trumpet, half squeak, like a suppressed sneeze. I smiled happily. I was getting there.
In the morning Aditya and I set out in a rickshaw to visit the old palace of Keonjhar which we had been told was just a crumbling empty shell. The rickshaw driver’s leg muscles bulged with the effort and his breath came in short, sharp bursts as we climbed steadily out of town. Then we picked up speed, freewheeling down hills lined with shops where men made metal pots, banging them into shape with small hammers. Out of the clouds appeared a fine crenellated wall overgrown with creepers, and furnished with tactically sighted look-out turrets embellished with arrow slits. Leaving the rickshaw we passed through an ancient gateway, its great wooden doors hanging askew from rotten hinges. We could make out the ruined palace overgrown with jungle and stained green with mildew, but still showing traces of former elegance. We wandered down a weed-covered pathway, choked with wild roses and shaded by towering palm trees.
At the main entrance, guarded by a pair of heavy bronze cannons moulded in the shape of tigers, we were met by a group of scruffy young urchins who announced that they were the keepers of the palace and would be pleased to show us around. They led us into the Durbar Hall which had been capped at one time by a fine frescoed rotunda and was now open to the sky. The floor was covered in bird shit. Graffiti was scrawled on the walls: ‘The world is a servant to money’ and ‘Life is nothing but pain’. In the ballroom, they told us, a vast crystal chandelier used to hang from the ceiling, where a family of swallows now had their nest. As we felt our way along dark dripping corridors, bats erupted around us and screeched away, brushing our faces with their velvet wings. In the Deity room a black outline was all that was left of a solid gold statue, stolen twenty years ago, and in a corner, flaking with rust, was the Royal Nagara – a huge metal war drum. Noting my interest, one of the little boys explained with the air of a professional guide that there were once two war drums covered in human skin. In warning against invading armies, they would reverberate of their own accord.
‘What happened to the other one?’ I asked.
‘Gone walking, sir. To lake.’
Under a large mango tree, which we were told was a thousand years old, stone slabs covered a dried up spring. Legend said that anybody entering the water disappeared. Keonjhar took its name from this. It means ‘spring’ in Oriya.
Our young guides ushered us into a large, pretty courtyard surrounded by small pavilions. In the centre stood a marble fountain designed as the open petals of a lotus flower. The floors of the pavilions had once been mosaic and were still studded with a few remaining pieces of lapis lazuli. An ornate, gilded, empty frame was propped up against a wall, a reminder of an opulence long gone. This was the entertainment chamber where once the Maharaja had received his visitors, plying them with opium-based sherbets and sweetmeats as they relaxed on silk bolsters, while dancing girls had whirled in front of them. To make his foreign guests feel at home, the ruler had commissioned carved scenes, which still ran along one wall – a two-masted ship in full sail; a lady in European costume with a small boy in knickerbockers hanging on to her full skirts; a train puffing over a bridge. One of the boys asked as we were leaving if we wished to meet Her Highness the Rajmata.
‘The Rajmata!’ Aditya exclaimed incredulously. ‘She still lives here?’
We waited in a small, dripping courtyard surrounded by tubs of long cactus-like plants called ‘mother-in-law’s tongues’ and from whose shape and sharpness they have taken their name. Where once we would have been forbidden to enter we now stood – in the old zenana.
The boys reappeared carrying in their arms an old lady dressed in a simple cotton sari and scuffed rubber sandals. After laying out a strip of torn Aubusson carpet, they placed her carefully in a rickety wicker chair. Behind her, in the gloom, her attendants fluttered about like ghostly moths, their faces veiled. The boys informed us that the Rajmata was unable to speak, but she could hear and see.
Aditya stepped forward and touched her feet in obeisance. For a moment the sad eyes cleared and she smiled gently, as if remembering better times; times when the palace had bustled with activity, times of glittering banquets, the rustle of silken saris, of colour, and, above all, of respect. Now she was reduced to this, a proud old woman left with nothing. A wave of great sadness swept over me.
The boys’ devotion to the old lady was touching. No one looked after her now, they told us angrily as we were leaving. Her relations had abandoned her. She had been robbed at gunpoint three times. Everything had been taken. They had begged her not to keep her valuables under her bed, but like many old women she did not trust banks.
‘You know these western states were once famous for human sacrifice,’ Aditya told me on the way back in the rickshaw. ‘Traditionally, the Rajas of this state had the right during their coronations to have a man brought in front of them, whereupon they would cut off his head, and give rent-free land to his family as compensation. After the British arrived and banned capital punishment, the Commissioner, on hearing of this custom, quickly travelled to Keonjhar to put a stop to it. As you can imagine, everybody was highly upset, but the Commissioner, a practical fellow, managed to appease the ruling Raja and solve the problem. The chosen man was duly brought forward. The Raja swung at him with his sword without actually making contact and the victim collapsed on the ground feigning death. He was then ordered to disappear from the kingdom and to be very careful never to be seen by the Raja. He was in fact declared dead and the family duly compensated.’
‘Typical British ingenuity,’ I crowed. ‘At least we did achieve something.’
Early next morning, Aditya and I were woken by a frantic Indrajit and Gokul. ‘Tara escape!’ they exclaimed, ‘in big tank [reservoir]. Won’t come out.’
‘Where’s Bhim?’ I growled, sleepily.
‘Sleeping. Drink too much rum last night, so we take her for bath.’
‘Wake him up now and meet us at the tank.’
When we arrived there was no sign of Tara. The surface of the water was calm. Alarmingly, the tank was enormous. (I remembered the case of an elephant that went for a two-hundred-mile swim, island-hopping across the Bay of Bengal. It took twelve years to complete its journey and the distance between some of the islands was at least a mile.) Suddenly from the far side of the tank, the tip of Tara’s trunk broke the surface, blowing a spray of water like a fountain into the air. With a trumpet of pleasure she flung herself forward like a porpoise and disappeared again, delighting the large crowd which had by now gathered around the tank.
Bhim arrived carrying a spear, the ankush, a selection of fruit and a large sack of gur. ‘Not Mummy’s fault,’ he said angrily. ‘Gokul forget chain legs. Rajpath warn.’
Gokul squeaked with indignation stating that he was unaware of Tara’s penchant and if Bhim had not drunk so much this never would have happened. Aditya calmed them down before a fight broke out, suggesting they should concentrate their energies on getting her out.
Standing in the shallows, Bhim started calling Tara, a banana in his outstretched hand. She immediately reacted, came surging across the tank to stop a few yards from the bank. In the meantime, as Gokul could not swim, Indrajit, armed with the spear, had managed to circle behind her. He waited, treading water frantically with the tip of the spear aimed at her backside. As she came a little closer and reached out her trunk, Bhim retreated, enticingly. She came closer still, almost into the shallows. With a quick lunge, she whipped the banana out of his hand, popped it into her mouth and reversed into the water. Turning to face Indrajit, who had been almost swamped by the wave, she blew a jet of water at him, performed a kind of elephant back-flip and surged away, trumpeting triumphantly. The audience applauded deliriously.
This ploy was repeated a number of times. All were unsuccessful. Finally Bhim turned to me. ‘Raja-sahib call Mummy.’
Aditya had gone to call the police to see if they could disperse the crowd that were not helping matters. He returned with one policeman who upon seeing Tara cavorting in the water, tucked his bamboo cane under his arm and settled down to enjoy the fun.
I followed Bhim’s instructions. ‘Tara! Tara!’ I yelled authoritatively, waving a lump of gur in my hand. ‘A dhur! A dhur! Lay! Lay!’ The people watching howled with laughter on hearing my accent. Some of them mimicked me accurately.
Again Tara came quickly across the lake. At the sight of the gur, she placed two large front feet on the muddy bank. I gave her a small piece and then as quickly as possible, grabbed hold of one of her ears to try swinging up on her back. She turned quickly. For a moment I was pulled through the water like a beginner trying to water ski, letting go as I swallowed a mouthful of dirty water. I started to swim back, gasping and choking. I felt something long and sinuous encircle me, and like a lifesaver rescuing a drowning man, Tara pushed me forward, depositing me in a wet bundle in the shallows. She trumpeted again and looked at me mischievously before returning to her watery playground. ‘Mummy no come now,’ Bhim stated. ‘We leave her. Mummy come out when cold.’
That evening, almost twelve hours later, I was sitting on the veranda of the Circuit House when Gokul shouted excitedly, ‘Tara coming!’ Looking down, I saw her trotting happily into the garden. At last, I thought, thank God for that. Unfortunately our troubles were not over. Each time Bhim and Gokul tried to shackle her, she backed away, after ripping the chains from Bhim’s hands and throwing them into the air.
We tried the old food trick. One of us fed her while the other tried to snap the two front chains together. It failed. After shutting the garden gate, we drove her into a small area surrounded by two walls. We advanced on her purposefully, shouting ‘Baitho, baitho!’ jabbing the spear into her back legs. She charged at one of the walls, almost demolishing it. Slightly stunned, Tara stood quietly for a moment. Seizing his chance Bhim quickly scrambled on to her and took control with the ankush. Gokul then chained her. She looked unusually remorseful, squeezing her eyes shut when I rapped the end of her trunk with a small stick.
Tara’s tantrum was over, but I couldn’t be angry for long. After all, it was Sunday and Gandhi’s birthday. It was a holiday and she deserved some fun.