Elephant Sense

He froze, trunk poised in mid-air, and looked straight at me. I turned around to see what had disturbed him. Nothing, except a mahout leaning lazily against the wall with a slight smile playing on his face. I turned back in time to see the brilliant shot I had just missed – molten afternoon light playing with the cloud of dust that the magnificent tusker had just sprayed over his back.

Not to be outdone, I raised my camera and focused once more. He froze again. From behind me, an unmistakable chuckle. “He’s posing for you”, the mahout explained, grinning at my puzzled expression. “He loves the attention, and wants to oblige”.

I looked at the elephant in disbelief, and noticed that he had even stopped swaying. I made a big show of handing over one of my cameras to a friend, discreetly stuffed the other into my jacket, and moved away. Maybe if I hid behind a wall or something…

No go. The sequences went something like this. Frame. Freeze. Sigh. Frame. Freeze. Chuckle from the mahout. Frame. Freeze. Guffaw from my friend. I gave up and took a picture of his magnificent tusks instead.

How many human beings he had studied, I wondered, and how much did he know about us…

We were in Coorg, at the Elephant Interaction Centre of the Dubare Wildlife Sanctuary. I was fascinated at how much interaction was possible, with opportunities for even getting into the water and giving a massive hind quarter a good scrub! But the highlight for me was watching the feeding.

Hungry after the bath, the elephants began queuing up to be fed almost half an hour before feeding time. One after the other they lumbered up, and immediately got into position, with trunk draped over the wall in a posture of infinite patience. Delicious smells wafted in the air, of ragi and jaggery. There was a definite pecking order, with the dominant males being fed the gigantic balls of ragi first.

My favourite, however, was the pregnant Mythili, a gentle giant with a two year calf next to her. Her mahout had his hands full feeding the mother and calf; every time he put a ball of ragi into Mythili’s open jaws, the little calf would send a snaking trunk in and wiggle out a sizeable portion! The mahout did everything he could think of to get her to swallow fast; cajoling, threatening, tricking…

Nothing worked. Indulgently, Mythili would hold her jaws slightly open to allow the calf to dribble out the food. “How do I ensure she gets the nutrition she needs,” despaired the mahout, “she has another baby growing inside her”. Back he went once more to the kitchen, distracted the calf and deftly sent a lump of jaggery down her throat. One down to the mahout. But Mythili won my heart.

We left Dubare without having seen any elephants in the wild. But it didn’t really matter.

Rainforest Moments

It came in a dark brown, almost black bamboo wrapping that was a work of art in itself, and for that reason alone it stayed unpacked for over a year. A long slim cylinder of bamboo sheath in which, my intrepid trekker husband told me, was an exquisite tribal tea that had been smoked over the fire for god knows how many moons. The top was crossed over and tied with a thin sliver of bamboo ribbon, carefully tied into a bow. It was a ceremonial gift, from the village elder to an honoured guest.

Tea? From the rainforests of North East India? I was curious. Whatever was inside was rock hard, you could have knocked me over with it. Oh, you just need to shave off how ever much you need, I was told indulgently. I put it aside, rather fascinated with the whole thing, not too curious to experiment.

And then one languid Sunday afternoon, I discovered we were out of coffee. It was the perfect moment for the rainforest tea. Gently, with much curiosity, I opened up the bamboo sheath, and scraped off a small amount into the water I had put to boil.

Within minutes, the water turned a deep orange-red gold, and a thick woody aroma filled the air. On the point of pouring the milk in, I changed my mind. It would be a shame to mask the flavour. Lemon? I wondered, then decided to leave that too, for another time.

It tasted of the rainforest. Intense, rich, with depths and notes I wouldn’t have imagined in a tea. Notes created by an assortment of forest herbs, gathered at just the right time and blended together in just the right proportions, and then hung over the fire for months to let steam and smoke do their job… Each family apparently had their signature blends, and this was surely from a connoisseur…

The TV seemed a sacrilege, and I turned it off. I needed silence, and solitude, to savour this. And space… Quietly I picked up my cup, and went outside to the green of the garden.

Light years later, I reverentially wrapped the bamboo sheath back in place, wishing I had a strip of green bamboo ribbon to tie it up with.

It held my own private stock of rainforest moments.