To the Elephant Graveyard Read online

  Gingerly, Mr Choudhury pulled the blanket back still further, revealing the man’s arms. These had been wrenched from their sockets and were now hanging by a thin thread of skin.

  The hunter let the blanket fall.

  “This is just how we found the other bodies,” whispered Mole, his voice edged with fear. “This elephant is evil. He has the devil in him, I’m telling you. He rips off the arms and legs, and crushes the body. He’s a monster.”

  “Are you sure there’s only one elephant?” asked Mr Choudhury.

  Mole nodded energetically.

  “Yes. All the eye-witnesses have seen only one. They describe him as a giant. Some say his tusks are fifty feet long. They’re terrified.”

  Mr Choudhury looked interested but curiously unimpressed by these details.

  “Look, you know that’s not true. Come now, let us find out exactly what happened here.”

  He rose and turned to the family, asking whether anyone had seen what had happened. An old man leaning heavily on his cane shyly volunteered to relate the story.

  “The elephant came while we were eating,” he began, his voice croaking. “We heard it trumpeting and then it crashed through the fence and came towards the hut.”

  He pointed at a mud and straw structure in the right-hand corner of the compound.

  “We felt the ground trembling as he came nearer. Stomp, stomp, stomp.”

  The old man beat against his shrivelled thighs with clenched fists, making elephant sound-effects to add to the drama of his storytelling.

  “He pushed against our hut. It shook as if there was an earthquake. There were seven of us inside. We were all terrified. None of us could even move. We did not make a sound. I was certain that any moment the elephant would kill us all. But he turned and attacked the other hut.”

  The old man watched through a window as the animal tore down the other structure.

  “He grabbed the roof and wrenched it off, tossing it on to the ground,” he continued. “He tore down the wall as if it was paper. My son was inside. He was down on his knees, praying. The beast grabbed him with his trunk. He lifted him up high in the air.

  “My son called out, ‘Help, Father, the elephant is killing me! The elephant is killing me!’ Then it smashed him down on the ground. My son begged for mercy. Again, the animal threw him down. All the time, my son was screaming. I could do nothing.”

  The father clutched at his face, the tears rolling through the gaps in his fingers. His shoulders rose and fell. Mr Choudhury put his arm around him and whispered a few kind words, while other members of the family stepped forward to console him. It took the old man some time to regain his composure.

  “The elephant swung him against that tree until there was hardly anything left,” he continued, his voice now barely audible. “Finally, it dropped him on the ground…” The old man paused for a moment to hold back his tears and then continued. “The animal raised one foot and brought it down on my son’s head.”

  A sudden silence fell over the place, broken intermittently by sobs. I kept my eyes fixed on the ground, uneasily digesting this story, trying to reconcile the image of the mad, murdering rogue with my own mental picture of elephants gently grazing and splashing in watering-holes.

  Save for a few details, the old man’s story was very similar to that told by Monimoy in Das’s Guwahati office. It seemed the farmer had been telling the truth.

  Mr Choudhury was once again kneeling on the ground, examining the footprints in the soil.

  “The rogue escaped that way,” he said to me, pointing to the north. “See where the fence is broken again over there. He stayed here for some time before leaving. His tracks move over here.”

  He followed the footprints around the compound like Sherlock Holmes on the trail of a promising clue. Mole and I tagged along behind him like a couple of confused and ignorant Watsons. At length, he stopped in front of an overturned plastic barrel lying by a fence.

  “Well, what do we have here? Hmm, let’s look at this.” He gestured for us to come closer.

  I helped him lift the barrel and place it the right way up. Near its base, we could see that the thick plastic was punctured by a large round hole.

  “Yes, just as I thought,” said the hunter. “There’s no doubt about it. This shows that this elephant is an alcoholic tusker.”

  “An alcoholic? What on earth do you mean?” I asked.

  Mr Choudhury paused and his face broke into a smile. Patiently, he explained that the villagers had been making bootleg liquor.

  “That’s what was in the barrel. Look at the hole. He’s pierced it with his tusk.”

  Mole and I examined the container again more carefully.

  “This elephant is a heavy drinker, amongst other things,” concluded Mr Choudhury. “Elephants love alcohol, particularly the rice wine these people make. They can smell it from miles away and they often break down houses to steal it.”

  I learned later that such raids are extremely common. Every year across the subcontinent marauding elephants regularly go out for a night on the razzle, consuming hundreds of gallons of home-made booze. In Bengal, a wild herd recently invaded a military base, tearing down electric fences to get at the soldiers’ supply of rum. As the distraught troops looked on, the elephants broke off the tops of dozens of bottles and guzzled the contents. While in southern India, a wild elephant attacked an off-licence, and was seen heading into the jungle with a case of whisky tucked under his trunk.

  As with humans, drink seems to influence the animals in a variety of ways, depending on their character. Some turn rowdy, most simply stagger around belching, and many have been seen nursing hangovers. The experts cannot tell whether elephants drink for the taste or for the effect. But bootleg liquor, which is often laced with methyl alcohol, does the animals little good, causing severe damage to their internal organs.

  Mr Choudhury was now back on the trail, reconstructing the crime and muttering to himself as he scanned the ground for signs and clues.

  “He got hold of the barrel, punctured it with a tusk and drank its contents. This is a very clever and dangerous elephant. But why kill the man? There has to be something more.”

  Before I could say anything, he was off again, walking briskly along the elephant’s trail. He climbed over the broken fence and into the paddy-field beyond, surveying the ground. Mole and I followed. After a mile or so, he suddenly stopped.

  “Yes, look at his tracks. Do you see?”

  The earth was soft and the huge round footprints were clearly defined.

  “Sure, we see them,” said Mole.

  “No, look very closely,” said Mr Choudhury. “Usually an elephant’s back feet fall where the front feet have already walked. See his prints. His back foot falls off to the side.”

  “So he’s lame,” guessed Mole.

  “Perhaps,” concluded the hunter. “Most probably, he has been wounded, maybe by an arrow. That helps explain why he’s so angry.”

  “You can tell all that by just looking at some footprints?” I asked.

  Mole looked equally impressed by his colleague’s deductive powers. But the hunter didn’t acknowledge my question. Instead he muttered, “I have to check one more thing,” and knelt down on the ground in front of one of the deepest footprints. Taking a measuring tape from his jacket, he laid it around the circumference of the impression.

  “You can calculate an elephant’s height by doubling the circumference of its foot, man,” explained Mole, pleased to show off some of his knowledge.

  Mr Choudhury read from the tape. It was four and a half feet long which made the animal about nine foot tall. He took the proclamation order printed with the elephant’s description from his shirt pocket. A quick glance confirmed that the height matched that of the wanted rogue.

  “That seems proof enough that this is our man, or rather our elephant,” he said as he cast his eye along the tracks that led over the fields to distant green jungle. “And I believe I have a v
ery good idea where we are likely to find him.”

  With that, he turned and headed back towards the scene of the crime, deep in thought. I hurried after him.

  “What kind of elephant is this?” I asked. “Why has he done all these terrible things?”

  “He’s definitely dangerous. There’s no question about it. But we must find out whether he’s a genuine rogue or not,” said Mr Choudhury. “Some of the elephants sanctioned for execution by the government are just bad-tempered, sick or injured animals. If you give them time, they’ll eventually calm down and go back into the jungle.”

  The hunter explained that elephants periodically suffer from a strange and little-understood condition called musth, a period of psychological disturbance associated with sexual maturity and desire. During this time, they excrete a sticky substance from their temporal glands which runs down their cheeks.

  “Many elephants turn dangerous and disobedient,” said Mr Choudhury. “It lasts about three months. Then they calm down and become quite placid again.”

  According to the hunter, a genuine rogue was an elephant turned man-killer. Although rare, the Assamese have a name for such an animal – goonda.

  “Once in a while, a real goonda comes along,” he said. “If we are dealing with such an elephant, then nothing can be done for him.”

  “Surely, he could be put in a zoo or a wildlife sanctuary,” I said.

  “No, I’m afraid not,” said the hunter. “It would be too dangerous for the general public. Killing him would be the only humane thing to do.”

  ♦

  Preparations were soon underway for the funeral of the crushed victim. The body was carried into the cottage where it was washed and prepared for cremation. An hour or so later, wrapped in a white cotton cloth, it was placed on a stretcher constructed from bamboo and carried into the front garden where the rituals began.

  In front of the cottage, I stood by the gate, watching a Hindu pandit, or priest, recite holy mantras while the family scattered rose petals over the shrouded body. Six male relatives then picked up the stretcher, lifted it up on to their shoulders and carried it into the lane. With the priest in the lead, the solemn procession wound its way through the village past kindly neighbours who lined the route, offering their condolences to the bereaved family.

  It took just half an hour to reach the cremation site, positioned on the edge of a stream, down-wind from the village and its thatched roofs. Here, the stretcher was placed on a pile of wood five or six feet high that had been coated in ghee. Nearly a hundred people gathered in a semicircle around this edifice and, as the priest recited more prayers and the family wept more tears, the eldest son, carrying a flaming torch, circled the pyramid. Then he stooped down and, holding out the torch with one trembling hand, lit the kindling at the base of his father’s funeral pyre.

  Smoke rose up around the body, encircling it in a ghostly haze as flames licked their way up the branches, the clarified butter hissing and spitting like a pit full of snakes. The bamboo stretcher turned black, the flower blossoms shrivelled into nothing, and soon the shroud was alight. Sparks shot up into the air, flames reaching towards the sky, and while the rogue’s latest victim was consumed in a blistering conflagration, his widow sobbed and wailed, the sounds of her grief barely audible above the roaring blaze.

  As a final act, the eldest son took a wooden club in both hands and, raising it above his head, brought it down on his father’s skull. There was a decisive crack and then, and only then, was the man’s spirit finally released.

  ♦

  Back at the Forest Department headquarters, I caught up on some sleep in the guesthouse bungalow while Mr Choudhury and Mole went into town to stock up on supplies.

  An hour or so later, I was woken by a strange noise coming from outside my door. It sounded like a young boy learning to play the trumpet. The notes, which were mostly spit and wind, were out of tune. Still half asleep, I pulled on my trousers and opened the door. Walking cautiously out on to the grass and rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I took a step forward and bumped straight into the backside of an elephant.

  After everything I had seen and heard in the past twenty-four hours, my first instinct was to race back inside the bungalow, slam the door, fasten the latch and hide in the bathroom. I was certain that at any moment the animal would smash down the wall and tear me limb from limb. Several minutes passed. Nothing happened. Even the trumpeting stopped. I crept out of the bathroom and over to the window and very slowly pulled back the curtains to see if the coast was clear.

  The elephant was still standing near my door. Now that I had got over my initial shock, I could see that she meant me no harm. Indeed, she was holding a pathetic-looking deflated football in her trunk and I got the distinct impression that she was looking for a playmate.

  She was a beautiful, graceful, well-proportioned creature and there was no doubt that when she walked through the jungle, male elephants would look her way. She had lustrous brown eyes and long black eyelashes which she fluttered like a catwalk model. Her forehead and ears were speckled with pink freckles. Nature had also endowed her with a petite tail that swished flirtatiously, perfect ears the shape of India, and a little tuft of coquettish curly hair on the top of her sculpted forehead.

  As this was the first elephant I had ever met, I was naturally nervous. My new acquaintance, however, was not lacking in confidence. Spotting me emerging from the bungalow, she strode straight over to the door and, without a moment’s hesitation, extended her trunk in my direction as if she was offering to shake my hand. The end of her trunk hung before me, its spongy nostrils twitching. The proboscis then moved down over my chest, stomach and thigh. I felt it brush against my leg and, before I knew it, she had reached inside my pocket and pulled out a packet of strawberry-flavoured Fruitella sweets that I had been saving for later. As quick as a flash, she threw the whole lot, wrappers and all, into her mouth and began to chew, squinting at me and making satisfied gurgling noises.

  “I see you’ve met Jasmine,” said Mr Choudhury, approaching us from the other side of the compound, having just arrived back from the shopping trip.

  I chuckled.

  “Yes, she just robbed me and ate the evidence!”

  Mr Choudhury ran his hands down Jasmine’s trunk. She stomped her feet lightly, apparently pleased to see him. The hunter patted her cheeks and she drooped her trunk over his shoulder affectionately, giving him a hug. Digging into his pockets, the hunter produced a handful of peanuts which Jasmine picked up with the end of her trunk and dropped into her mouth.

  “Sometimes she’s a very naughty elephant, especially when she meets someone new and she knows she can take advantage,” said Mr Choudhury.

  “Is she trained?”

  “Yes, she’s a kunki, a domesticated elephant.”

  “Domesticated?” He made it sound as if Jasmine was qualified to do the housework and eat with a knife and fork.

  “She was caught in the wild when she was a calf,” he explained, patting her forehead. “Now she’s employed by the Forest Department.”

  Jasmine belched quietly to herself as her digestive juices got to work on my Fruitellas and the peanuts.

  “Go ahead and touch her,” said Mr Choudhury. “Don’t worry, she won’t bite.”

  I reached out with my right hand and, like one of the blind men in the story of the Elephant in the Dark, ran my palm over her trunk. I had expected the skin to be smooth but it was coarse and covered in prickly black hairs. Jasmine seemed to enjoy human contact and made a satisfied rumbling noise deep inside her chest that sounded like a cat purring.

  “She’s a new member of my elephant squad,” said the hunter. “Come and meet the others. They’ve just got back from gathering fodder. They’re over there.”

  He pointed towards the banyan tree where one or two figures were busy cooking over a log fire.

  “Who are the elephant squad?”

  “They’re the SAS of the elephant world.”

>   “The SAS?”

  “My specially trained team. We work together during the winter when the herds come down from the hills looking for food.”

  The elephant squad, he explained, was employed by the Forest Department to patrol the district and prevent wild elephants from straying into the fields and destroying the farmers’ crops.

  “The herds come every year and we have to drive them back,” he said. “There’s not enough food left for them up in the hills and the jungle. Down here, there’s a lot on offer. For the elephants, it’s like going to the supermarket – only the food is all free.”

  Mr Choudhury took hold of one of Jasmine’s ears and led her over to where the elephant squad was camped near the banyan tree. As I followed, watching Jasmine’s sagging bottom bob up and down, another elephant strode through the compound’s main entrance carrying a load of freshly cut banana trees. He was a gigantic animal, almost twice the size of Jasmine, with a great arching spine and a gigantic cranium crowned by two prominent frontal lobes. His ears, which flapped and beat continuously against his sides, were frayed and torn around the edges like pieces of worn leather. His tail, which was covered in porcupine-like hairs, swung from side to side as rhythmically as the pendulum of a clock.

  “That’s Raja,” said Mr Choudhury.

  I stared at him transfixed, suddenly feeling incredibly small.

  “He’s what we call a makhna, a tuskless male. Isn’t he magnificent?”

  A mahout sat astride Raja’s thick neck, gently rocking back and forth in time with the elephant’s stride. The mahout’s back was erect and his feet were lodged behind the animal’s ears. He was a short man with rock-hard calf muscles. Chunky blue veins ran across the length of his arms like the roots of a well-nourished plant. With an apricot complexion, slanting eyes and a wispy beard, he could easily have been mistaken for a Turkoman from Central Asia. His clothes – a rough tunic, old shirt and fatigues – were scruffy and marked with dirt and grease stains. He went barefoot and his toes were like bits of gnarled ginger. His hands were filthy and the palms had the texture of sandpaper. And yet, despite his slovenly appearance, his face exuded character. Like a piece of antique furniture, it had a worn, mellow finish, the grain and lines of his skin adding depth and substance.