On The Trail of The Rhino

On The Trail Of The Rhino
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It was going to be a welcome break from the Reuter screens, volatile rate swings and hectic trading in the foreign exchange dealing room in Bombay. My in-laws lived in the tea plantations in the Dooars, in the foothills of the Himalayas in Bengal.They had invited their daughter and brand new son-in- law to spend a holiday with them there. What I did not know at the time was that my father-in-law had been a Shikari, a game hunter in his younger days and loved the jungle wilderness.

“I stopped shooting twenty years ago,” he said, while driving through the green shade trees swaying above the tea bushes. “I looked at the eyes of a deer I had shot. That was it. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get any joy from shikar and killing animals anymore. Never again.”
“Good for you,” I said. “Times have changed and we don’t have to do those macho things with guns.”
“Its not the guns, Bhaskar. Its the sounds and rhythm of the jungle. The animals, the birdcalls…,” he trailed off. “I want you to see it for yourself. I’ve booked rooms at the forest bungalow of the Jaldapara wild life sanctuary. Its not very far from here. We’ll drive there the day after tomorrow.”

We arrived at the reserve forest at sundown and checked into the forest bungalow. The sounds of the jungle were everywhere, from the loud trumpet of elephants to the whistle of forest rangers looking for poachers. While driving in, I had seen thick, tall elephant grass in the distance and had wondered how we would drive a car through ‘that’.
“We’re not going to drive into the deep jungle!” my father-in-law exclaimed over dinner. “Sleep well tonight. We start at dawn, 4.30 sharp. The elephants would be waiting.”
Elephants? Then it dawned on me. We were going to go into the deep jungle on elephants on the trail of other animals. That would be really exciting provided we didn’t tumble off it’s back. I slowly dozed off dreaming of the adventure in store for us the next day.

It was still dark when the alarm rattled off and soon I was wide awake. It was too early for breakfast so we had some coffee and biscuits. Then we were off. We drove down to a place which I can only describe as an ‘elephant station’. There was a steep concrete staircase leading up to no-where in particular with a perpendicular drop at the end. It looked like a stairway to heaven cut short at 20 feet off the ground. I climbed up the staircase and looked down at the clearing in the forest. Something was moving in the distance. And then, there they were, four of the biggest elephants I had ever seen. Each of them had houdas or special seats on their back, neatly strapped to their underbellies. Each of the houdas could easily seat five people, including the Mahout who was it’s trainer, friend and master. The first of the elephants came and stood alongside the staircase, much like a yacht docking alongside a jetty. Then, starting with my father-in-law, one by one we went up the staircase and onto the houda on the elephant’s back. My father-in-law and I sat in the rear while my wife and my mother-in-law sat in the front. The Mahout was right in front sitting close to the elephant’s head.

I am quite used to the revving and kick-start of a motorbike, but I was not prepared for the take-off that our elephant had planned for us. There was a loud hiss and a roar and loads of elephant droppings shot off . The only thing missing was thunder and lightning from the rear exhaust. Then we were moving. Swaying left and swaying right we picked up as much speed as an elephant could possibly generate. We passed by another two groups waiting to board their flights, sorry, rides and they waved at us and wished us luck in finding game.

I was quite enjoying the experience. These guys were really BIG and even the tall elephant grass was way DOWN THERE. We floated over the tall grass and passed by branches on the upper reaches of trees. Monkeys and baboons made strange faces and cackled at us. Undeterred, we entered the wonder world of the deep jungle.
“If you see a peacock,” my father-in-law explained, “then chances are that you will not see any animals today.” Noting that we were all ears, he continued, “but if you see a snake crawling by, then you’re in luck.” For the next half an hour, as we made our way through the dense jungle, I kept a close lookout for snakes. But except for monkeys and birds, we didn’t spot anything. Nothing at all.

My wife was looking for big animals as hard as I was and then she saw something big move.
“Shhh,” she whispered, “I think I see a rhino.”
The mahout pointed out to us that it was only an elephant’s ass that she had seen. It was one of the other groups out on the rhino trail. But there was nothing else. It was as if the animals had decided to avoid the big city intruders.

After three hours on elephant back in the jungle, it happened. All the coffee that I had gulped down, had been effectively recycled. Nature called. I had held on long enough without saying anything, but now I just ‘had’ to go. My bladder at bursting point and feeling just a little embarrassed in front of my in-laws, I told the Mahout to stop. This was an emergency. There was no fancy toilet in the jungle and I was desperately trying to figure out a way to get down from the elephant. Even if the elephant sat on its haunches, we would still be 13 feet off the ground. How on earth was I going to get down? Disappearing behind a tree to do the job was the easy part, provided there were no animals to bite off one’s valuables. I racked my brains to find a way to climb down the elephants back. Should I climb down the tail, slide down the side, or like in the Tarzan movies, be gently carried down by the elephant while I relaxed on it’s trunk? The Mahout was unfazed. I saw him looking around and I thought that he would probably find me an old tree trunk or a boulder to help me disembark.

In a few moments we stopped and the Mahout nodded his head and indicated that it was time I made my move. But hang on, we were still 18 feet off from the ground and there was no sign of the elephant either trying to squat or helping me to get down. I looked helplessly at my father-in-law and asked him the best possible way down. If he didn’t help me fast, I was very close to creating a mess on the houda.
He calmly pointed upwards with his finger and smiled. “The Mahout wants you to go UP, not down into the jungle. He doesn’t want you to go into the undergrowth.”
“Up,” I exclaimed, “you mean he wants me to climb up that tree and do it from there?”
“Well, you don’t have to climb up the tree. You’re already up. Just step on to the tree. Haven’t you been up on a tree before?”
So I stepped on to the elephant’s head and then on to the nearest branch that I could find. Tarzan and Sheena would have approved.
“Go ahead son,” my father-in-law seemed concerned , “ we’ll stand by till you are comfortable on the branches.”

“I can’t do it with all you guys staring at me,” I thought to myself, but I was in no mood to yell. When nature calls, to nature you must give yourself. So I pulled myself up to another branch while I navigated other branches with my hand. Then I had the perfect pose. One foot in a lower branch, the other spread apart on a slightly higher one, one hand holding an upper branch and the other trying to find the zipper of my jeans. Everyone, including the damn elephant was watching me closely. Help was at hand if I slipped and fell.

Once they were sure that I was in position, the elephant gave me a coy look and turned its eyes away, giving me some semblance of privacy. It slowly wobbled its way away from the tree. And I was alone, on top of the world, raining down on the rain forest, a god and master of all I surveyed. My right there was none to dispute… O solitude. I wondered if Tarzan had ever had the experience of peeing from the top of a 25 foot tree. There I was, relieved at last, exposed to the wind, sun and the jungle, in full view of the world at large. I would live to ride another day.

Though the torrent had passed, the last drops of rain were still fertilizing the undergrowth. I was about to finish, when I saw a movement on my left.
“ Wonderful,” a voice said from another elephant’s back. “ What an enterprising fellow. We haven’t seen any goddamn animal at all. Do you see anything from up there? Do you have a binocular?"
I was more interested in closing my fly than think of a binocular, but then, these were normal human beings, thinking of normal things like spotting an animal with a binocular and these were normal questions.
“Hey I think I saw a big snake on the ground,” I yelled, “probably a python.”
“At least you’ve seen a python,” the voice said . “We haven’t seen anything. They’ve given us the slip.”
“Now you will,” I said knowledgeably. “If you see a snake then you’ll see big game.” They waved and disappeared into the jungle.

Our elephant soon returned and I managed to get back on the houda again. During the rest of the trip through the jungle, we did not discuss my discomfort and my journey upwards into nature and godhood. But when, out of the undergrowth, the rhinoceros charged, I was glad that I had relieved myself standing on top of that tree.