The Wildest Sport of All Read online

  few moments.

  All around my companions were fleeing towards the few trees on the nullah’s higher reaches and scampering up them in sheer terror, unmindful of guns, clothes or skin. A tracker was trying to haul himself up the thorny branches of the tree closest to him. A crony of ours hung on to his legs and caused him to slither back down, where they sprawled on the ground. Looking around for a refuge for myself, I saw my elder brother frantically gesturing to his shikari, who had already climbed up a tree, to hand down his rifle. The man had snatched the weapon out of my brother’s hands in sheer fright and then sought safety among the low branches. I heard my own voice shouting out to my brother asking if the coast was clear and if I should attempt to run and gain the tree he was fidgeting under. On the ground he too seemed in a similar, if not worse, predicament. His voice raised in nervous concern, he said I should remain still and wait as the tiger was coming. As if I did not know!

  Even the very air around us crackled with danger. Unmindful of his warning, I scrambled towards the tree, and he quickly pulled me up into the shelter of its commanding height. No tiger emerged, however, and as we waited, the sun-drenched jungle resumed its mantle of tense calm. We looked rather sheepishly at each other. The rest must have felt the same way. As an ancient Chinese proverb goes, ‘Fear knocked on the door, Faith opened it but there was no one there.’

  A whole day had been lost again. There was nothing more to do, so we returned to the bungalow. The next morning we took up the trail again. A little scouting around the extreme outskirts of the narkul cane and its further-most edges revealed pugmarks that clearly told us the tiger had moved further into the dense, wild tract of grass. We followed the pugmarks for about two or three miles.

  The blood trail had ceased and we could make out a dragging paw along with three otherwise healthy pugmarks. This told us that the tigress, for that is what she was, had suffered an injury in its right leg, and that the wound was not of a serious nature. Our worst fears thus allayed, we abandoned any further efforts to track the wounded beast. The next day we had to leave that block of the forest as our all-important permit for shikar was due to expire.3

  A month later, a friend of ours happened to be passing through this same forest on his way to Nainital. The district forest officer, or DFO, was known to our friend, and told him about the fate of the tigress I had injured. While trying to cross over a fallen tree in a ravine, the tigress, exhausted and weakened, had succumbed to the suppurating injury in the upper part of her right frontleg. It had collapsed across the tree in its path, and thus stricken, had died. The DFO on his rounds had found it in this position, draped across the tree’s horizontal bole, its flesh already decomposed by death, which had followed not many days after this hard-fighting tigress had been shot at.

  Let me take you briefly back to an instance in this tale when I had asked you to bear with me till the end of the episode of the tigress. I want to tell you something that has never ceased to interest me. Perhaps you too may find the revelations of some interest, if you happen to be a visitor to our many national parks, where sightseeing on an elephant’s back is a major attraction.

  Where does the animosity between tigers and elephants stem from? Certainly not over food habits. Then why did our shikar elephants grow nervous and, ignoring their rigorous training to be obedient and docile, begin to thump their feet and trunks against the ground close to the tiger? Surely, they possessed an inherent sixth sense against the striped killer’s dreaded presence. This sixth sense exists even in humans, for the changes which have affected this primeval, deep-rooted instinct in man through time have been the result of civilization. Our elephants possessed it for sure. Their sixth sense caused them to give in to this natural gift and ignore our promptings to move further.

  It is my personal belief that in the wild state, tigers prefer quiet surroundings to live and operate in. The noise caused by a party of men or wild and shikar elephants disturbs them sufficiently, so that they either shift their ground or aggressively attack these intruders who trespass on their forested realm. The elephant, to reiterate, has developed an in-built system that warns it of the ferocious king’s proximity.

  A forest guard once told me that he was out one morning on his daily rounds when he had been attracted by the terrific commotion caused by a herd of trumpeting wild elephants in the sal forest that tipped towards a watercourse ahead of him. Seeking to investigate, he stole through the undergrowth until he came within sight of the elephants. The pachyderms stood in a group – around five of their young, shrilling in loud defiance – facing the jungle on the other bank of the boulder-strewn nullah. There, a huge young male tiger bounded out into view from the jungle, springing a dozen metres into the open towards the trumpeting elephants. The cow-elephants at once shepherded their babies more closely, as with lolling tongue and wide gaping jaws, the tiger crouched, waiting and watching.

  As if in answer to an unspoken command, the elephant herd turned around in their tracks, and closely herding the baby elephants, began to go up the watercourse, away from the tiger. Dumbfounded, the forest-guard watched, all thoughts of personal safety forgotten, for never had he seen or even heard of a tiger hunting a whole herd of wild elephants. No sooner had the elephants negotiated a few hundred metres or so up the nullah when the tiger leapt after them. Again, it crouched low and waited like a stone among the boulders. Aware of the continuing pursuit, the herd stopped and again trumpeted with increased fury. And a strange thing happened then. One of the cow elephants broke from the herd and stepped a few paces towards the poised, devilishly grinning tiger which was keeping a suitably safe distance. She stopped, and curling her trunk around a large, irregular boulder picked it up menacingly. Then swiftly, the elephant flung this stone at the tiger.

  In the words of the forest guard, Negi, so unerring was this missile in its accuracy that the tiger jumped up and down like a rubber ball to avoid the boulder that thumped down close to it. Then, picking up a fallen log from the nullah’s side, the elephant threw it at the undeterred tiger. Jumping and bouncing about once again, the tiger dodged the flung projectile. This time the elephant herd began to move further up the watercourse. Quick as a flash, the tiger bounded out of the nullah and took to the jungle, on the opposite bank from where it had emerged to harry the elephants. One of the calf-elephants lagged behind the shuffling herd, for watercourse boulders make tricky footing for the wide, padded and awkward feet of pachyderms. With a hungry growl, the tiger broke out of the trees, leaping into the watercourse towards the hurrying baby elephants. Its grim intention was clear. Trumpeting with suddenly redoubled strength, the elephants stopped and at once surrounded the young one in an amazing show of single-minded protectiveness.

  Then two of the elephants plucked up boulders from the stream bed and hurled them at the tiger, which, once again, was kept busy bouncing and jumping to duck and dodge the stones that could easily maim it. The herd of pachyderms then vanished up a bend in the watercourse and the undaunted tiger proceeded to stalk the baby elephants again, from cover. The struggle for sheer survival, the most abiding bond in the jungle, in which elephants must protect their young ones from the tiger bold enough to fancy their flesh, might be the true reason for the elephant’s in-bred hostility towards the predator.

  Most of us elephant-back shikaris have not without difficulty learnt that the elephant is largely unpredictable. Strict training and a good mahout can definitely serve to keep its volatility in check. An undertrained elephant proves a nerve-wracking, if not actually fatal, experience for those wishing to ride on it in tiger country. Maybe that is why our own shikari elephants were so well trained. Their courage and self-control endeared them greatly to us. Today we sorely feel their loss, as of old comrades.

  Once we were fortunate enough to have a young tusker that was quite untrained and unused to shikar in our expeditionary pilkhana.4 I say fortunate because knowing the beast’s temperament, we used it as a merry-making device, and assiduously avoi
ded riding to shikar on it ourselves. That would only happen when we all were keen enough to test out some unwitting fellow’s courage. But this tusker was good enough to beat the jungle with and was used mainly in the beating line. We and our elephants were on our way once to beat a disused area where the tall grass had sprung up wildly. A settlement existed on the fringes of neglected orchards that had gloomy old trees and tall clumps of tiger grass that grew profusely in the clearings between the untended trees and on the open stretches of rolling lands that surrounded the area. While passing single file through the village, we came across a knot of people watching us go by. The stirring sight of the swaying, striding tusker with us brought an appreciative outburst of applause from one of the two venerable looking men around whom the crowd stood gawking at our retinue.

  ‘Such a big animal controlled by a mere toy in the driver’s hands!’ he cried. ‘God is indeed wonderful for having created such a creature.’ Then, hailing us, they spoke tentatively. ‘We have heard much about elephant-back shikar but have never been on one. Could we come with you?’ One of our party replied humorlessly, ‘Yes, you can ride on the spare tusker’. This queer-minded tusker was a favorite of ours for baiting the unwary with, as I have already told you. We prepared for a bit of fun. But, as subsequent happenings showed, we were grossly underestimating the gravity of the jocular situation.

  For one thing, we could not have made a worse choice than those two bearded old clerics, toothless and mumbling, as they sat with obvious unease perched up on the heaving back of the moving tusker. For another, we were totally unprepared for that elephant’s unusually frisky disposition that morning. For no sooner had we passed through the semi-arid, sparsely forested outskirts of the village, the tusker took off after a peacock that had been flushed out and was flying up above the elephant. What a comprehensive jolt those two pious riders must have felt then! For a moment they flailed about on the rushing beast’s back, finding quick handholds, looked wild-eyed ahead, while prayers seriously heavy with the ideas of doom and death spilled from their tense lips. Despite their bearded visage, they began reciting their holy book – the Koran – in stricken voices. Those couplets lengthened into half-shrieked, long verses as the elephant ran one way, then checked its motion in a gut-wrenching heave, and sprang into a lumbering run the other way. The mahouts were able to bring it back only after the peacock had flown off, flapping into the brambles. The two riders did not look as good or eager as before. Their curiosity seemed killed conclusively by a force they were desperately trying to ignore. They did look as though they dearly wished to say something to us then. But more was to happen.

  A hog-deer started up in the straggly clumps ahead of the re-formed elephant line. It dashed away. Simultaneously, its baby fawn bolted from the under the tusker, and jumping about, startled the tusker. It shuffled about and mistook the underbelly of the tusker to be its mother’s. Liking the security, it began to prance under it, apparently reluctant to leave its shelter. This excited the tusker more than ever. It simply swung around and the kid bolted, darting out from under and hopping about in the grass. Squealing, the tusker went after it and its passengers clung to it. So agitated had the tusker become that the elephant we brothers were on, along with the other female elephants, too went berserk. Because ours was truly well-trained, she ran but was controlled into a state of nervous compliance by our mahout. But the others, led by the tusker, rushed off and the last we saw of our impromptu guests was them clinging onto their holds and cowering, and in all likelihood bravely reciting the longest, most difficult discourses of metaphysical theology. Their beards, as I mentioned before, shook in a manner most remarkable, as their lips moved frantically, jerking perhaps with the fact that their willful mount had brought them closer to their creator.

  The tusker veered away between the trees from overgrown irrigation ditches and sudden broken-down well holes. The females, blindly following the tusker bull, collided with each other in keeping up with the rushing elephant. What a sight we must have presented. Our mahout was more careful than the others, but we later learned that he had injured his forearm when the elephant had earlier rushed under a tree and the sweeping branches had all but dragged loose the howdah. But in the open spaces between the trees, our trained mount showed extreme fear. It suddenly wanted to seek shelter in the undergrowth, immediately wanting to hide, and began bellying along the clumps. It was most disturbing, for we distinctly knew what it would be like to be pitched onto the ground, or under the elephant, as it slithered along low in the grass, most upset. Getting thrown into one of the old wells, which appeared with alarming regularity, was another possibility never far from our minds. Suddenly, the uncontrolled elephant squealed in frustration and the other elephants rushed towards the loud noise. Another person on one of the female elephants broke his leg this time. His leg dashed against a branch as his mount rallied to the tusker’s call. All the four elephants reached the nervously bellowing tusker and, at once, together dashed their heads into a grim wall that surrounded the tusker’s raised, swinging head. A moment’s calm, like a period of sweaty clarity in the middle of a nightmare, fell upon us after this. Then the tusker broke out and took off again, running pell-mell through the trees and the tall grass, making its riders shout louder and more fervently. This sort of a savage thing went on for twenty harrowing minutes. Our clothes were torn and our bodies battered. The other elephants broke apart, ran about to get their bearings and dashed towards the tusker as it trumpeted tremendously, twice more. They ran into each other repeatedly. Then came the break.

  The tusker ran into soft ground near a creek and sunk, floundering up to its struggling knees. It squealed and called. Our elephant at once rushed towards it. But on reaching the creek’s bank, the sight of the infuriated tusker working itself out of the slick mud checked them in their initial haste to help. The mahouts got to work, encouraging the tusker with shouted and cried commands. The passengers on its mud-spattered back were pitiful to watch. One thing was quite apparent – they were still praying! As the tusker extricated itself, my mahout got our trained mount to take the lead and the tusker emerged from the natural mess it had blundered into, walked bristling between the other elephants in a line that was now closely crowded, herding it into following our steadily moving mount.

  Those venerable village visitors still prayed. Then, as we came out of the grass and entered the first few thatched huts of the village clustered beside our path, the two priests on the gamboling tusker jumped down onto the first grassy roof, flinging and dragging themselves off the saddle, and before we could call out, they had slipped down the other side of the roof. From the top of our howdahs we saw a wonderful sight there. The villagers all embraced the venerable men in turns, and many a time the two men broke off from the general camaraderie to embrace each other in dazed disbelief and genuine happiness. In desperately trying to reassure themselves, they often pointed skywards, unable to forget the nightmare, or their savior.

  The elephant is unpredictable. Any sort of influence from its training that the elephant normally takes well is forgotten when wild uncertainty takes over. The elephant never loses this wild streak. Witness its aggressive behavior when on heat. I believe Rudyard Kipling called this state ‘dewanee’. In this state, the affected elephant embarks on a trail of destructive terror, completely unmindful of past love or loyalties, often killing his own mahout and keepers. During that time, gifts of exotic food and special jaggery have been known to momentarily sate an elephant in ‘musth’. Their mental make-up, which has earned through the ages for them the epithet of wise animals, seems to account for, to a large degree, their distinct gregariousness. There is an alertness to them, uncanny in determination to keep to the herd, and each and every animal in a group, especially the leader, is aware of what is happening around it.

  In captivity, elephants positively respond to others of their kind in various ways, and to different needs in the pilkhana, as they do in their own wild habitat. This sort of a free
will that the elephant possesses makes it retain its moody independence even in captivity. Easily roused, it can become extremely destructive. Because of this perpetual uncertainty possessed by the elephant, it is believed that Alexander, the Greek ruler, upon being offered an elephant to ride had declined, saying that if it did not have reins like a horse, he wanted nothing to do with it. It is this facet of the elephant’s nature, together with the ability to never forget being a part of its mental make-up, which makes it wary of its age-old enemy, the striped killer.

  1 Pipal-pardau is a forest block between the Jim Corbett National Park and the district headquarters of Haldwani town. The forest department granted permits for hunting here before the sport was banned.

  2 Potluck is a colloquial term used within the camp to denote edible birds—such as partridge, jungle fowl, spur fowl, pheasant and doves—which could be easily bagged around the camp, along with small game such as hare or porcupine. These could be quickly cooked, in a pot strung over the still-alive embers of the night’s campfire, into a tasty dish.

  3 Restrictions were imposed on entering forested areas aimed at curtailing the over-exploitation of the flora and fauna there. These have been enforced through government regulations since a century or so, ever since their importance was realized by enlightened authorities. As pointed out in the Introduction, hunting that could become lawlessly rampant was also sought to be regulated for more than one obvious reason.

  4 Pilkhana: A stable for trained elephants and their mahouts or drivers, also known as pilwans or pehelwans.

  It happened in May 1960, while we were camping at the Hathikund forest block in the Kalagarh division, now a tiger reserve in Uttarakhand.1 Live baits had been tied for the tiger, but we had no luck for five or six days. This was quite surprising, for this particular forest was never short of tigers and had even acquired a reputation for the exertion-free sport it offered. Our shikaris tried their utmost, frequently changing the locations where they were staking out the animals used as baits. Days were spent in tracking the game trails where tigers prowled in the jungle, and baits were then tied accordingly, but each morning brought ever-increasing series of disappointing reports to the camp fire. The calves and heifers remained untouched, grazing and thriving where they were tied, as if it was their private pasture and not the tiger-infested forests we had come to hunt in. The whole process of locating fresh pugmarks and game trails would begin again and the baits removed to a newer, more promising ravine, thicket or meadow, to be re-tied with fresh hopes and a silent prayer. Despite our efforts, the run of bad luck persisted. Days were wasted in all this but tigers kept studiously away from our baits.