In the Sauraha jungle
BY Anand Gurung
It was late spring but Chitwan was already very hot. There were no people on the road where a little while ago a jeep had driven past lifting a huge cloud of dust. The rickshaw-man who had brought me to Sauraha was red in the face and perspiring profusely through all the cycling.
“You’ll just be making a round of jungle,” the rickshaw-man said as we sat in the restaurant patiently waiting for the elephant to arrive. “There are rhinoceros, leopards, chital and many other animals in the jungle. But don”t know, it is just 12 now and very hot and they would be hiding deep in the bushes.”
“Yes,” the restaurant-owner said. “If you had come at around 3 o”clock then you’d have better chances of spotting animals easily.”
“No body told me that,” I said. “Anyway would we be seeing tigers?”
“It’s rarely that one spots tigers and leopards in the jungle,” the restaurant owner said. “For that you have to be extremely lucky.”
The Chitwan National Park was not used to getting visitors at this hour and the restaurants alongside the dusty road were mostly empty save for waiters lounging at the tables in the terrace. I had time, so walked towards a resort sign. The graveled path from its gate ran between two lines of trees and ended in a small garden. I crossed it and went towards the guesthouse-style building. Inside it was dark coming from the sun, but one could easily see it was clean and well decorated, and it felt nice there. There were no attendants around, though, so I didn’t stay there for long.
At the place where I had bought the ticket to the park I was told the elephant had arrived.
The rickshaw-man came up to me and said, “The elephant is ready. It is a very big elephant and the mahout is also an experienced one,” and quickly looking at his watch said, “You’ll be back here by 3 o’ clock.”
He then took me behind the building where the mahout was readying the elephant. It was indeed a big elephant and was busy spraying dust below its chest with its trunk to ward off the heat. A little away from there two girls were standing in the shade. I had seen them at the highway bazaar of Ratnanagar from where I had taken a side road to come here. Apparently, they had also come for an elephant ride and I was glad to have some company.
Shortly after the mahout announced that the elephant was ready and the girls went up the raised platform and got into the elephant. I did the same. The mahout, though, just climbed up the elephant by making it raise its front legs. He was short, dark and had tight muscles through years of tending the elephant.
Once we were comfortably settled, the mahout tightened the straps that put the howdah steady and made few last minute arrangements before giving a nudge on the elephant’s ear with his ankle signaling it to move. The elephant languidly made its way up the dusty road and with each of its heavy step our body jerked. There were freshly ploughed fields on both sides with little mud huts and beyond them the plains of Chitwan. Soon the elephant followed the fixed trail into the jungle and suddenly it was cool, the sun shined occasionally through the leaves of tall trees and the view became less and less extensive as the jungle closed in behind us.
Watching the tall Sal trees closely as the elephant marched along, its leafy extended branches being skillfully cast aside by the mahout with his stick, but sometimes brushing us by, and some very old trees with its sprawling boughs. There were trees everywhere one looked and the forest floor were littered with dry leaves. The girls were talking and it seemed strangely resonant in the jungle.
“Are we going to see some animals?” I asked the mahout.
“Afternoon is the best time to spot animals,” the mahout said. “But you can see rhinoceros at any time.”
“I was told that this elephant is the biggest in Chitwan”
“Yes,” the mahout said. “It is the biggest. We brought him from Assam.”
”For how many years have you been doing this?”
”It’s been 17 years.”
”Are you from Kathmandu?” the mahout asked later.
”Yes,” I said
”After two months I am taking this elephant to Kathmandu for a show,” he said, and suddenly fell quiet. He had spotted something. The girls also stopped talking.
”Look, there’s a chital,” he said pointing towards his left. “There, over there.”
We looked at the direction he pointed and had a quick view of a spotted dear. It was alone, and as soon as it saw us, it jumped into the bush and disappeared.
The elephant kept on marching through the jungle and after some time we came into the most pristine part of the forest. There were large tree all around and the sun was among the leaves. The bushes were so thick that you didn’t even see the jungle floor. It was here the mahout had an incident with a leopard a long time back. A leopard had jumped onto the elephant’s back from a tree bark and snarled at him. It didn’t attack him, though, and immediately jumped from there and disappeared into the bushes. He always believed that it was an indication that the forest goddess needed to be given an offering, something the villagers living on the edges of the jungle had long been ignoring.
“When are we crossing the river?” I asked again. I had seen photos of people crossing river on elephant back.
“River?” the mahout said with a hint of surprise. “We will just be making a round of the jungle.”
“You’ve to go to Narayani for that,” one of the girls said turning to me and smirked a little.
I saw that she was mocking me and said nothing.
”But Bis Hajjar lake is better, it is so peaceful there,” she said. This time I thought she was being serious. The girl then turned to her side and started talking to her friend again.
Enjoying the ride, the cool, the quietness of the jungle, I ate the sandwich I had brought. I had left my hotel early having a light breakfast and was a bit hungry and I ate fast. I had brought a packet of chips also and which I shared with the mahout and the two girls. The mahout shared what he got with his elephant. I opened a can beer, took a nip from it and felt its cool on my throat. The sun, which was occasional through the leaves, was at an angle now. A kind of heavy feeling of having beer in the sun came over. The Mahout had grown silent than before, pulling hard on his cigarette with a cupped hand. I turned back; the girls had also stopped talking and were just looking ahead. One had a nice tangy colored complexion and a long hair; another one was younger than the first and slightly small and dusky. But they clearly had a bad taste when it came to clothes. But all this didn’t matter to me. I was fascinated by how in the early afternoon sun they were silent and how some strands of hair of one girl stuck into her perspiring face.
After an hour or so we came down the forested part of the park into where the grasses were tall as the elephant, but since there were no trees there was no shade either. The view looking back at the forested part of the jungle was indeed breathtaking. Here, above a raised platform supported by iron bars, there was a lookout tower. The mahout said we had reached the heart of the jungle.
A little later we saw paw print made by passing rhinos in the trail which went into the dense bush. But even there we had no sight of them. But soon after that we spotted a mother rhino with her child in the shade.
“We were lucky to find these two,” the Mahout said, “Had it been afternoon time it would not have been this difficult to spot them.”
At some distance, separated from the jungle by only a barbwire the river could be seen.
We spotted two other rhinos some meters away in a water hole. It was the wetter area, so the floor was swampy. One rhino was in the water and another was waiting his turn. They ignored our presence. It felt very safe watching them from elephant top. The girl with the long hair was strangely excited and seemed enjoying all of it, but the other girl looked a bit tensed.
“Is she scared?”
“Yes,” the girl with the long hair said.
“Tell your friend there’s nothing to worry about it. We would soon be going from here.”
“She always tells me that she is afraid of the rhinos the most,” the girl with the long hair said.
Later I was told the reason. She was from these parts and once a rhino came charging in when she was somewhere in the river banks cutting grasses with her friends. They just managed to save their lives by climbing the trees.
“Even then the rhino kept charging at the tree. This was enough to make her and her friends really scared,” the girl with the long hair said.
“That would have made me afraid also,” I said
“Listen to me,” the mahout said, “if you catch a rhino by surprise and don’t find a tree nearby then you have to run in a zigzag path.”
Soon the rhinos left the water and we out of the bushes from where we came in.
“You know how they kill the rhinoceros?” the girl with the long hair asked.
“No.” I said
“They trap the rhino by digging holes in the spots it uses as a toilet.”
“I have also heard about that, yes”
“They approach their mounds of excreta sliding backwards so they are not aware of the hole. And they fall in it and later the poachers come and kill them.”
“Have you seen a rhino being killed, Aalam?” I asked the mahout
“Yes,” he said, but added that these sort of things rarely happen as the rangers are very watchful
“Should I tell you one thing,” the girl again asked me. “You know what the rhinos are killed for?”
“Probably for their horns, I think. Most of the rhino parts are valuable.”
“Yes, but do you know the use of their horns.”
“I think they use it as a showpiece.”
“Yes, but the real reason,” she said, her voice falling into a murmur, “is that it is said to increase your manliness.” She then turned away and laughed.
“You know a lot about rhinoceros,” I said. “Can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“What do you do? You study?”
“No, I work. I left school early.”
“And what kind of work do you do?”
“I do this and that.” She gave a long drawl. She didn’t want to answer the question.
After some time, we came to the place from where we had entered the jungle and then the dusty road. An elephant, much smaller than ours, slowly passed us carrying foreign tourists and after we took a curve another passed us with hay stacked on top of it. At the place where I had purchased the ticket few jeeps were parked.
After we came down the elephant I tipped the mahout. He was very grateful.
“Listen,” the mahout said as we walked out to the streets, “Those two girls usually come here and I have seen them with lots of men.” He paused and again said. “If they had been my sisters I would have slit their throat.”
The girls were standing across the road. I crossed it and entered the earlier restaurant. They also entered. I sat at the table in the terrace, the two went inside into the washroom and then came out and sat at the table behind me. I went inside the restaurant and into the washroom. When I came out I saw the two girls sitting on my table.
“It’s pretty hot,” I said. Want cold drinks?”
The longhaired girl nodded while pulling at her shirt to let some air in.
”Three cold drinks,” I told the waiter.
The waiter brought it and set it on the table. A man in his white vest and shorts was lying in another table, his mouth open. Beside him a young man in blue t-shirt was looking at the girls smiling. His motorcycle helmet was on the table.
“So you were saying before about the lake, where is it, is it very far?” I asked
“It is not very far,” the long-haired girl paused, and looked for affirmation with her friend, “but I haven’t been there.”
“Before you were talking as if...”
She leaned forward on the table and said, “Let’s go there together. It would be fun.” She smiled.
The waiter came inside from the kitchen and set the drinks on the table.
“I am sure you’ll be here for few days?”
“It is a nice place. But I am going back tomorrow.”
The girl said nothing
After a while I asked for the bill. The waiter brought the bill and I paid him.
Two guys and a girl had joined the young man at the other table. They were all young and ordered beer. One guy with his cap turned backwards waved at the girl and asked how she was. She waved back at him. They knew each other.
“Okay, I have friends there. Goodbye,” she said.
I paid the bill and stood up. I said goodbye to her and goodbye to the other girl. She smiled and took the other girl’s by her arm and went to join her friend at the other table. The two girls sat down and one of the guys put his arm around her neck. I went out and hailed the jeep that was just passing. nepalnews.com Feb 19 08
(The writer can be reached at: andygurung@yahoo.com)
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