WE STARTED THE steep ascent of the South Bihar highlands, leading to the great ranges of the Chota Nagpur Plateau, which eventually wind downwards to the flatlands of the Indo-Gangetic plain and our final destination of Sonepur.
The gradient became progressively steeper, our path often blocked by boulders which had been swept down the hillsides during the monsoons. In places we were confronted by fallen trees, which Tara threw aside like twigs. In the early morning, the narrow tracks, lined with lantana bushes, became a tunnel of sparkling cobwebs filled with fat, black and yellow spiders which, being venomous, terrified me. Tara decided that a straight line was the best approach, and I spent hours wielding the ankush, brushing the spiders out of my face and then panicking as I felt something crawling down my bare back.
The sal forests were being systematically destroyed by the local villagers, for cash and for new fields. In deep valleys between the hills, the remaining topsoil and the trapped water yielded good rice crops and, on the peaks, where only a few trees remained, ‘Jhoom’, or slash and burn cultivation, was taking place.
We reached the summit of the South Bihar highlands and made camp, affording a fine view of the Chota Nagpur plateau, a watery blue massif in the distance. The tribals of this area, the Bhumias, are a wild and shy people, hunters who rightly claim that the forest belongs to them. Animists with long flowing hair, they wore head and arm bands made from snake vertebrae and knotted red loin-cloths. Most of them carried axes instead of bows and arrows, adopting an easier form of survival. They seemed out of place in this devastated landscape.
In the middle of the night Tara trumpeted loudly. I rushed over and found her straining at her chains, rapping her trunk on the ground and then signalling with it towards some bushes. I threw a bomb into the darkness. There was a scrabbling in the undergrowth and, in the beam of a torch, I saw the bushy back of a bear charging down the hill. I felt sorry for the creature, which must have been sauntering home, self-absorbed in the custom of bears, his belly full, to doze through the daylight hours in his lair. Confronted by this enormous and enraged elephant hissing and trumpeting loudly, he probably suffered terrible indigestion.
The next day, at a village called Biribanki we disturbed a colony of bats that blackened the sky and then returned to hang like clusters of black grapes from the trees. The villagers were disappointed to find that we were unable to shoot them as we were not carrying firearms. In this region bats are considered a great delicacy.
We reached a deep, impassable nullah or ravine. Indrajit coaxed the jeep carefully but when it could go no further he doubled back and arranged to meet us in a few days at Sarwada. We loaded Tara with provisions and set off, glad to be rid of the jeep and its mechanical problems. Now I could concentrate totally on Tara.
She was refusing point blank to listen to my commands and treating me with almost arrogant disdain. In a sulk I decided to walk for the rest of the day. We had entered the Bible belt and passed neat, white-washed churches in every village. Young girls with long hair gathered in pigtails and tied with pink ribbons, wearing blue skirts, white shirts, long socks and sandals, swept the courtyards with religious fervour. Two young boys fell into step beside me. Their names were Daniel and Imai, and they told me they were converts to the Anglican Church of North India. They were on their way, they said excitedly, to attend a five-day church seminar in the town of Muru.
‘What religion are you belonging to?’ Imai asked me politely.
‘Well, I suppose Church of England, Protestant, but I don’t take it very seriously. I go to church usually once a year at Christmas.’
‘Once a year?’ they gasped. ‘But that is very bad.’
‘I don’t have the time, boys,’ I continued poker-faced. ‘You see, nine months of the year I live in England where I like to beat my wife, and when I go away I chain her up and come to visit my elephant. I never beat my elephant, though.’ (Not much, I thought.) ‘All men beat their wives in England. And drink. And do other things,’ I said suggestively. ‘Would you like to go to England?’
‘Oh yes, sir,’ Imai replied. ‘Very much. I would like to see the beatings and drinkings and other things. In fact,’ he continued wistfully, ‘in our village we used to …’
‘Imai,’ Daniel said sternly. ‘That is enough. We will make a report of this at our meeting.’ As we parted company, he turned and shook my hand. ‘Sir,’ he said sombrely, ‘you may have a fit body, but you have a cracked mind.’
Completely out of context with the surrounding landscape, high upon a hill stood a magnificent red brick church with a high circular turreted spire. It was the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, first constructed by Belgian missionaries in 1874. As the community grew and more money became available, the church was finished in splendid style in 1910.
The padre invited us in for tea, but banned Tara, who could easily have fitted underneath the large entrance. Instead she poked her trunk through the open window while I fed her a continuous stream of biscuits. It was light and airy in the nave, where the ceiling soared two hundred feet. The vestry walls were lined with clocks. There must have been fifteen or twenty of them, all showing different times – even a cuckoo clock which would chime wheezily and shoot out a rusty spring. As we were leaving, the padre pointed to the large collection of pouches attached to long wooden poles.
‘Isn’t it wonderful,’ he announced in a condescending way. ‘The people are so poor here that they are unable to give money. Instead they fill the pouches with rice.’
‘Alleluia,’ I said, and walked out.
We met up with the jeep near a village called Keora, where again people were celebrating the festival of Dussehra. Revellers lay unconscious at the side of the road, in ditches and the wisest in the comfort of small paddystacks. One man, more steady on his feet than most, hung on to Tara’s tail, begging for a cigarette. Aditya gave him one which he promptly tucked behind his ear. He then stumbled forward in front of her and lay down and begged for another. Bhim shifted his feet fractionally behind Tara’s ears and she reached down to grab the back of the man’s trousers and dangled him in the air. By the perplexed look on his face, he seemed unsure of whether he actually was being held aloft by an elephant or simply having a drunken hallucination. He let out a scream of terror, whereupon she deposited him gently on the side of the road.
We pitched camp beside a wide, marshy lake filled with wild duck and surrounded by mango trees. Before eating, Bhim approached me holding something in his hand. It was the illusive mimosa plant.
Gently I took the plant from him, staring at it reverently. So this was what I had been anxiously searching for for hundreds of miles. I was a little disappointed. I had expected something more exotic, instead of this lifeless green sprout that resembled a common weed. But, when I brushed its tiny fern-like leaves with my finger-tips, the plant became alive, the leaves closing rapidly – touch-me-not. Excitedly, I realised that in my hand I was holding power. The power that could tame an elephant. Bhim broke into my reverie: ‘Raja-sahib. Now have mimosa. Now do “full control ceremony”.’
The full control ceremony! This was my final puja. The puja that would turn me into a mahout! I ran down to the lake, bathed myself, combed my hair and put on my dhoti and gumcha proudly. When I returned to the camp Bhim presented me with a small ball of gur, wrapped in this precious plant.
‘Well, I’m ready,’ I said enthusiastically waiting for directions.
‘This is your puja, Mark,’ Aditya said. ‘Between you and Tara. It’s entirely up to you what you pray for, but after you have finished, feed her the offering.’
‘OK,’ I said. ‘Just a moment.’ I dashed into the tent and retrieved my copy of The Elephant-Lore of the Hindus. Turning to the chapters on ‘Favourable marks’ and ‘Marks of characters’ I knelt down in front of Tara and whispered, ‘Oh, beloved Tara, who trumpets with a roar like clouds full of water. With sparrow-like honey colour eyes. Whose reddish trunk tip is as radiant as red lotuses. Whose back is long and curved like a bow. Whose temporal bosses are hairy, and large, like the swelling breasts of a lovely woman. With broad ears, jaw, navel and pudenda. With copper coloured lip and palate. You, that are beautiful, who has an odour like the white water lily, sandalwood, orange tree and lotus. Whose face beams and who has the cry of the koil [cuckoo]. You are blessed with the character of the god. O princess you are worthy of a king.’
‘What did you recite this time?’ Aditya asked. ‘Humpty Dumpty?’
I ignored him and solemnly placed my offering of gur into Tara’s mouth. She rolled it around inside for a moment narrowing her eyes at me, as if making a decision. Satisfied, she swallowed it, and reached out to touch my face with her trunk. Then she farted loudly. By the terms of the puja, the moment she swallowed that gur, she had accepted me as her master.
‘Got you, you old bag,’ I said triumphantly. ‘Now you’ll listen to me. Just you wait and see.’
I sat down for a while and watched her. I now felt I knew her inside out. Immediately she confronted me again with my own ignorance, proceeding to do something so clever, charming and human that it left me speechless with admiration.
She rummaged amongst her fodder and selected a suitable branch. Holding it in her trunk, she stripped the leaves away and began peeling the bark back. For a moment I thought she was simply going to feed. Instead after discarding the bark, she broke the branch into four separate lengths and laid them out in front of her. She selected one and sharpened it to a point against her chains. Satisfied with the shape, she began to clean methodically between her toenails like a manicurist, digging out the dirt, then wiping the tip of the stick in the grass. Her beautification complete, she blew spittle on her toenails and buffed them with the end of her trunk until they gleamed blackly. I later found out from Bhim that there are sweat glands between an elephant’s toes. It is essential they are kept clean to prevent clogging.
Male elephants ‘in musth’ have been known to use the same process to clear the temporal glands, which can become blocked with discharge. On occasions, certain rogue elephants that have been shot have been found to have a broken piece of twig jammed tight, like a cork, into both glands. Some experts surmised that they had been driven mad by this and, unable to remove the blockage, had turned aggressive.
The next morning, my confidence unlimited, I decided to attempt the expert’s way of mounting an elephant – by the trunk. With a certain panache, I grabbed both her ears, placed a foot solidly on her trunk and shouted authoritatively ‘Utha! Utha!’ I don’t recall much about the next few seconds – just a slight sensation of air passing quickly under my lunghi. Then to my surprise I found myself sitting firmly on her neck.
‘You see,’ I said triumphantly to Aditya. ‘That’s due to the mimosa. I’m now the master.’
‘Except that you are sitting on her back to front,’ he replied acidly.
‘That’s just a small matter. I’ll correct it in time. You see, I had my eyes shut. The most important thing,’ I said smugly, ‘is that I did it. You’re going to try it next.’
Accompanied by Gokul, we plodded down to bathe in the lake. Wading into the shallows, Tara obligingly lifted her leg so that I could climb off.
‘Chain her front legs, Gokul,’ I said.
‘Chains? No chains. Raja-sahib forget,’ he squeaked. ‘Wait, Gokul fetching.’
I stood beside her, holding on to one flapping ear. She looked out at the tempting flat surface of the lake and with almost an apologetic shake of her head, she whirled round and ran squealing into the water, surging across it like a stately liner, much to the annoyance of the ducks who took to the air in a flurry of beating wings.
‘Come back you bloody nightmare,’ I yelled. ‘Come back at once. I feed you! I spoil you! I honour and praise you! and still you insist on making me look a fool. When I get you out of there things are going to change.’
Grabbing the ankush, I plunged into the water and swam out towards her. I circled behind her, jamming the ankush hard into her fat bottom. ‘Move, you tub of lard,’ I spluttered, treading water frantically. Whereupon she disappeared. Moments later I felt my backside being prodded. I whirled around and managed to clamber on her back, holding tightly by both ears. With a squeal of delight, as if I was now her new playmate, she dived, and I found myself being bounced along underwater as she tiptoed along the bottom of the lake. My ears began to pop. Remembering what Bhim had told me about an elephant holding its breath for the same length of time as a man, I somehow held on. Just as I thought my lungs would explode, we surged upwards, taking great gasps of air.
‘You see, fatso. You cannot …’ and before I could catch my breath, down she went again. This time I had to let go, spluttering to the surface. She popped up a few yards ahead and looked mischievously at me. ‘All right, Tara, enough’s enough. I’m going for help.’
I swam to the shore. She followed me closely. As I climbed out she looked sad that the game was over. Shaking with rage and cold I marched into the camp where Aditya and Indrajit were having breakfast.
‘The all powerful mimosa,’ Aditya crowed, and both of them collapsed in laughter.
‘Where’s Bhim?’ I demanded. ‘He’s coming with me. And so are you.’
‘He can’t swim,’ Aditya remarked, ‘so what the …’
‘I’m quite aware of that,’ I replied icily. ‘I’m going to use my lilo. He can lie on it with the spear and we can push.’
It would have been an odd sight anywhere, but on a remote lake in the middle of Bihar, it was a miracle. Drunken Dussehra celebrants shook themselves from roadside ditches and haystacks, rubbing their eyes in amazement, as if their hangovers could not possibly account for the sight. Passersby stopped and stared, and I heard the church bell tolling as if gathering people to see this unusual spectacle.
Bhim was decidedly sceptical about the lilo. He prodded it suspiciously, but I convinced him that it did float. Lying down gingerly, he held the spear firmly ahead of him, and we pushed out into the middle of the lake. Tara came whizzing over, fascinated by this new arrival. Poking the lilo, she flipped her trunk underneath it tipping Bhim into the water. The old mahout disappeared in a wash of bubbles. Aditya fished him out and, ignoring his protests, rolled him back on. With Bhim as the central attack, we closed on Tara, in a kind of ‘V’ formation, jabbing the spear continually into her legs and backside. At last we began to force her towards the shore.
‘Boat sinking,’ Bhim shouted anxiously. Indeed it was, and water began to lap over the sides.
‘Hang on, Bhim,’ I yelled. ‘Just a few more yards.’ Tara, perhaps realising that this was no longer a game, lumbered out of the water and raced at full speed towards the camp.
‘Leave her to me,’ I said firmly, following her. For the next two hours we played a kind of cat and mouse game. Unable to resist the large chunks of gur that I held enticingly in my hand, she would trot forward and slowly push out her trunk. I would remove the gur and with the other hand, in which I held a thick piece of rope, whack her as hard as I could. She would rush off squealing, bursting through the camp, scattering tents and pots and pans. In the end, her greed proved greater than her patience and, with a look that said ‘the game’s up’, she stood meekly while I chained her front legs together. As I locked the final link, a bedraggled Bhim reached over my shoulder and punched her on the trunk.
‘Now Bhim shoot Mummy!!’ he raged. ‘Like soldiers shoot great tusker, Ganges, dead, in water!’
We managed to calm him down, but it was only after he had finished the better part of a bottle of rum that he finally told the story.
The elephant, a big old tusker called Ganges, belonged to the Maharaja of Puri, the Gajpati – The Lord of Elephants. Ganges was a splendid, gentle animal, cherished by the family, being used only for the most important ceremonial occasions. The town of Puri is situated on the coast of Orissa, and early each morning the elephant’s mahout, dressed in a red uniform, rode him to the beach where the fishermen would be unloading their night’s catch. The mahout would make a selection for the palace kitchen and then Ganges would carry the fish back in his trunk. At the beginning, Ganges had clearly indicated his displeasure by refusing to perform this task. Being a herbivore, the stink and slime that cloyed his sensitive organ would have been most distasteful. However, being a disciplined elephant, and, no doubt goaded by vicious jabs from the ankush, he eventually carried out his duties punctiliously. One day, his dignity badly bruised, Ganges decided he had suffered enough. Throwing down his noxious burden, he charged at a tree, intending to smash his mahout in the overhanging branches. Somehow, the mahout survived the impact and hung in the tree until the elephant moved away. Ganges returned to his stable in the palace, where the Rajmata, the Maharaja’s mother, as was her habit each morning was waiting to feed him. Alarmed by the absence of the mahout, she called for help. Obviously very disturbed, Ganges broke away before he could be chained, and rushed through the heavily populated streets of the town, where, amongst the crowds, he singled out and attacked passersby who were wearing red. Fortunately, only three people were killed and he finally came to rest in a nearby lake. By now, his mahout had returned, announcing that the elephant had gone mad. Acting on his recommendation, orders were issued to destroy the elephant immediately. As Ganges wallowed happily in the water enjoying his bath, a squad of soldiers lined the banks and emptied their magazines into him.
‘Not tusker’s fault,’ Bhim said, his bloodshot eyes watering. ‘Bad mahout,’ and curled up next to Tara to finish his rum.
‘How far is it to Ranchi?’ I asked Aditya.
‘About eighteen miles.’
‘Right,’ I said, climbing on to Tara. ‘No stops. We’re going straight through.’
Having perhaps sacrilegiously drawn a skull and crossbones with a white sunblock on her forehead, I dug my toes viciously behind her ears, rattled the ankush against the howdah and set off.
As elephants can sense fear in a human being, they can also sense anger. Perhaps it was this that vibrated through my body, transmitting itself to her, so that she finally realised I could no longer be exploited and began to respond accordingly. Gone were the days in which she would amble from side to side, travelling at her own convenience and pace. We fairly swung along. She misbehaved once, grabbing a handful of paddy from a passing cart. It was the last time she did it. Automatically, I stuck the point of the ankush sharply behind her ear. As she trumpeted in pain I winced, horrified by my actions. I felt instantly sick. Blood welled from where I had spiked her and I watched, mesmerised, as it spread over the side of her head.
‘Good, Raja-sahib,’ Bhim shouted from where he was walking behind. ‘Now Mummy listen.’
Terrified that I had injured her seriously, I drew both my feet back into her neck, a trick that I had seen Bhim perform many times. Surprisingly she stopped dead in her tracks. Bhim inspected the wound.
‘Not problem, not problem,’ he consoled me. ‘Not need medicine.’
But I was beyond consolation. After cleaning the wound with Dettol I stuck a large patchwork of Elastoplast over it, which she inspected suspiciously with her trunk before ripping it off, and throwing it on to the road. The blood had already dried, and I spent the rest of the day anxiously brushing away the flies.
We climbed steadily, up the southern fringe of the Chota Nagpur plateau. Cultivation surrounded us. There were no trees. This area had never recovered from the ruthless exploitation of the timber demands during the Second World War. We made camp under a large iron-girder bridge a short distance from Ranchi, the major city of this region.
The next day Aditya and I left by jeep to visit Ranchi, accompanied by a young crime reporter who had come out to meet us. He told us it was a relief to discuss elephants rather than murders. Bhim and Gokul in the meantime would make their way slowly around the vast town’s outskirts towards Pisca, near where we had been invited to stay with the sister of a friend from Delhi.
In earlier times, the salubrious climate of Ranchi had induced many Europeans to settle, and going by the sumptuousness of the former Government House, they were determined to live well. About four hundred labourers and two hundred masons were employed in the construction of Government House. The woodwork was executed by Chinese carpenters. Portland cement was used as mortar. The floors and ballroom were lined in teak and the card-room in marble. The gardens, designed in an Italian style, were filled with imported plants. Once a town of great character, Ranchi was now almost completely industrialised, with the dubious honour of having the highest crime rate of any city in India.
We called on one of Ranchi’s most venerable characters, a charming old Anglo-Indian lady called Marie Palit. A wildlife expert for thirty years, she had observed tigers from a tree-house she had built in the jungle. Now a sprightly eighty-five years of age, she told me she had started life in London, where she had studied to become a beautician and hairdresser in an establishment called ‘Dolls’, before marrying one of India’s most eminent surgeons who had received the OBE. Her house was named ‘Cobwebs’. When she had first moved to Ranchi some seventy years ago, the track leading to it was a tunnel of silken threads and she had been loath to disturb the occupants. Over tumblers of sherry she dreamily recalled a misty morning when the Duke of Gloucester, ‘a charming man on a beautiful horse’, had ridden over from nearby Government House to breakfast with her. A keen shikari in her day, she had shot everything except a hippopotamus and a man.
In the meantime, Bhim and Gokul were nearing Pisca. When we caught up with them, Tara was meandering from side to side, occasionally giving a small lurch as she tripped over one of her legs. Both Bhim and Gokul were asleep on top of the howdah – Gokul spread out on the back with a happy expression on his face – Bhim with his head on his chest, snoring loudly. As I got out of the jeep, Tara greeted me with a happy, lopsided grin and sneezed loudly. A blast of distinctly alcoholic breath hit me in the face. They were all drunk, having been to a roadside party. Bhim explained that the hot sun had made her thirsty, and it was impolite to let her drink alone.
Through some pretty, stone park gates, we could see a drive lined with jacaranda and wisteria bushes, at the end of which we could hear the sound of laughter and chinking of glasses. We had arrived at Tikratoli Farm. Our hostess was sadly in hospital, but her son was there to greet us.
On the lawns, surrounding a picturesque ornamental pond filled with rare species of water birds, a group of well-dressed men and women sat in easy chairs, chatting and draining the last of the pre-luncheon cocktails as if at some country weekend in England. We felt we were entering a dream as the scene was so alien to the vagabond life that we had led until now.
‘Good afternoon,’ I said as normally as possible, taking off my sweat-stained turban, as if I had arrived by car with my suitcases in the boot. I yanked hard on Tara’s ear to stop her helping herself to the abundance of carefully planted shrubs.
‘Welcome, Aditya and Mark,’ he said expansively. ‘Everything’s arranged. Park your elephant over there,’ he pointed to a suitable tree. ‘Your boys’ quarters are all prepared. Would you like to wash before lunch, or just get stuck into the drink?’
We spent an idyllic two days eating off china plates, using silver knives and forks, drinking out of pre-chilled beer mugs and bathing in big porcelain baths filled with piping hot water. Our travel-stained, filthy clothes were freshly laundered. We began to feel almost human again. Tara was utterly spoiled by the children of many friends who came to meet us, and the boys had an opportunity to have a rest and check out our paraphernalia. The jeep was stripped down and tuned. Tara’s pack gear, which was coming apart at the seams after the endless days of travel, was repaired and patched up for the final part of our journey.
Our host arranged a press conference. Apart from one journalist who thought I was an ‘exploiter’ rather than an ‘explorer’ and another who was amazed I had not been at school with Rajiv Gandhi, it went off well. The State Bank of India presented me with a banner which read THE STATE BANK OF INDIA APPLAUDS THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE. I was delighted. My association with these institutions has never been amiable.
Lured by the comforts of Tikratoli Farm and the superb hospitality of our host, I was tempted to stay longer, but I could feel complacency setting in. It was time to move on. McCluskiegunge, Hazaribagh, the vastness of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, and the mighty Ganges lay ahead.