An Elephant Eaten Alive

 Manoj Rupda

Translated from Hindi by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar

Illustrated by Nirvair S Nath

I saw an elephant once. I was 10 years old and a student of Std. V. At that time, I lived in my village Basamura, in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. I hadn’t seen an animal as huge as an elephant anytime before. I was on my way to the school, with my school bag with books and slate on my back. The elephant was standing in the middle of the village. There were children, women, and some elderly people surrounding that elephant. 

Old people were placing coins of 25 paise and 50 paise in the crook of the trunk of the elephant, then they bowed before the elephant and moved away. The elephant raised its trunk and handed those coins to the mahout sitting on its shoulder. Some women had brought lai, the traditional sweets made of grains and jaggery. Other women had brought thethri and khurmi, snacks made of wheat flour and jaggery. They were placing those in the crook of the elephant’s trunk. The women also placed cucumbers and carrots in the elephant’s trunk. Instead of handing those over to the mahout, the elephant gobbled them up. 

When no one was left to offer anything else to the elephant, the mahout struck the ears of the elephant with both his big toes and the elephant walked away. I hated to see the elephant walking away. So many people were seeing the elephant walking away but there was a difference in the way they saw it and the way I saw it. They were all bidding a joyous farewell to the elephant, whereas I had been totally mesmerised by that giant animal. After some time, the women and the elderly people walked towards their houses and the children walked towards the school, but I walked after the elephant and began following it outside the village.

I walked after the elephant for a long time. I do not know what it was that was pulling me after the elephant. Even after I had crossed the village limits, I wasn’t aware of how far I had walked. I just kept on walking after the elephant. 

I had left the village behind. The forest had started. I had forgotten everything and everyone—my village, my house, my father, my mother, my sister, my school, my teacher at the school, all my friends. None of them figured in my mind anymore. Even after walking for more than an hour and entering the forest, I had neither any worry nor any fear. I could see only that elephant before me and that man atop the elephant who was blowing out clouds of smoke from a beedi and rocking from side to side as the elephant walked. 

The path we were on was covered with dried leaves. Not only the path, the entire forest ground was covered with dried leaves. For a long way ahead, only dried leaves could be seen. The sound of my feet walking over those dried leaves was muffled by the sound of the elephant’s feet crushing the dried leaves. The mahout could not hear that there was someone walking behind them. 

I lagged behind as I tried to hear the sound of my footsteps. By the time I could notice, the elephant had moved ahead. Frightened, I ran after it; and as I did so, the sound of dried leaves being crushed under my feet turned more furious than when the elephant plodded over those. 

The sound of my running made the elephant stop. The mahout blew a puff of smoke and turned around. I stopped running and the mahout’s eyes met mine. He looked at me for some time and then lifted his right leg and turned around completely towards me. 

‘Where have you come from?’ The mahout looked stunned.

‘From Basamura,’ I panted somewhat as I said. 

‘Which village?’ 

‘Basamura.’ 

‘Basamura? You’ve come from Basamura?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re alone?’ I nodded my head in the affirmative. 

‘Why did you come so far in the jungle?’

‘To see the elephant.’ 

The mahout turned speechless for a moment. ‘You came so far from your village just to see the elephant?’ 

I said nothing. That man’s nervous voice had scared me. He looked really worried. He turned around again towards the elephant’s front and patted the elephant’s shoulder gently. Unwillingly, the elephant stooped and sat down.

The mahout turned towards me and gestured at me to go to him. I walked slowly towards him. As I reached close to the elephant, it turned its panting mouth towards me. Scared, I moved a few steps back. But then the elephant blinked its eye at me and shook its ears and I wasn’t scared anymore. 

The mahout extended his right hand towards me and I grabbed it. He pulled me up on the elephant. My feet got caught in the dirty rags spread on the elephant’s back and my school bag too was turned upside down. The mahout kept holding me till I had settled comfortably on the elephant’s shoulder. Then he put his arm around my body and tapped with his stick on both ears of the elephant. The elephant placed one foot on the ground and then another; and as it shook from side to side while doing so, I screamed in fear.

It was the first time I had climbed atop a moving object. When the elephant started walking gently, the mahout moved his hand from around my body. Some time later, I too got accustomed to riding an elephant. My fear vanished. 

‘You shouldn’t have come so far into the forest,’ the mahout told me. ‘You are very young. There are wild dogs, bears, and wild buffalos in this forest. They are very dangerous.’ 

He started telling me scary stories about forests from here and there. My attention was not on his stories but on the beautiful scenery of the forest. A little ahead, there was a tree laden with bright red flowers. It was a pleasant sight to behold—a tree covered in bright, red flowers in the middle of an arid, lonely forest. There were colourful birds chirping on its branches. Upon spotting the elephant, their chirping became louder. The parrots were the loudest, as if they were teasing the elephant. When the elephant raised its trunk, the birds flew away from the tree, but after flying in a circle they returned to the tree and hid themselves in its red flowers. 

I saw several such trees, laden with red flowers, as we moved ahead into the forest. The entire path was lined with those trees and there were so many flowers on the ground that as far as I could see the ground was covered in red. After some time, we left those flower-laden trees behind and we were again surrounded by thorny bushes and dried leaves. Now I could hear only the rustling of the dried leaves beneath the feet of the elephant. 

‘There is a village ahead,’ the mahout said to me. ‘I will drop you there. There must be someone there who would know you. They could take you back to your village.’ 

I nodded my head. But the mahout’s guess was wrong. The forest ahead was denser and there was no sign of any village anywhere. All we could see were dried bushes around us and dried leaves below. The layer of dried leaves on the ground was so dense that the elephant’s feet dug through the leaves as it walked ahead. After a while, it was hard to understand which way we were headed. The parallel rows of trees by the path were gone. Instead, we found ourselves stuck in a space made narrow by bushes and leaves that seemed to have grown all together and at the same time. There must have been a track but it had been made invisible by all the dried leaves fallen on the ground.

 The mahout pulled the chain tied around the elephant’s neck with both his hands, and the elephant stopped. I turned around and saw worry and botheration glowing on the mahout’s face. He was looking around, trying to figure something out. There was total silence for some time. And then, the bushes to our right began moving and we heard some crackling sound. There was something happening inside the bushes that we could not see. But the mahout sensed what that movement and sound could be. He immediately tugged at the chain tied around the elephant’s neck and hit the elephant on both its ears with his stick. The elephant began running. 

After some time, we reached a clear space in the forest. There were no bushes there and the entire place was covered with tall trees. The mahout stopped the elephant near a banyan tree. He wiped his sweat with a gamchha and stood on the elephant’s back and looked around. Standing akimbo, he glanced in all directions but couldn’t determine which way to go. After standing for several moments in that position, he tied the gamchha around his waist and climbed on a branch hanging close to the elephant’s head. He balanced himself on all fours on that branch and, holding the branch tightly, began climbing upwards. He reached that part of the tree where the stronger branches ended and softer, more flexible branches began. He moved those softer branches and looked all around to find a path. 

I kept looking at the mahout. He appeared even more worried than before. It seemed as if he was trying to take a decision or do something; but, finally, unable to do either, he just shook his head in resignation and began muttering. He untied the gamchha from his waist, wiped his face again with the gamchha, wrapped the gamchha around his neck, and climbed down upon the elephant’s back. 

‘What were you looking at from the tree?’ I asked him when he had settled himself on the elephant’s back. 

‘Shut up, you dunce!’ He snapped at me all of a sudden. ‘I’m lost because of you.’ 

I felt stung. I hadn’t expected him to get so annoyed with me. My eyes welled up with tears but that man showed no mercy. 

After some time, he took the hatchet tucked inside a rope tied around the elephant’s body and threw it on the ground. Then he loosened that rope and, holding its open end, climbed down from the elephant’s body. Then he tied the chain which was around the elephant’s neck to the stem of the banyan tree. 

The mahout did not look at me even once. I could not understand what he was thinking or what he wanted to do. He checked the knot of the elephant tied around the banyan tree, picked up the hatchet, and walked away into the bushes. When he did not return for a long time, I looked around at the desolation in which he had left me alone. 

The sun rays started turning yellow. The day was closing. A cool breeze started blowing, shaking the leaves in the trees and blowing away the leaves that were scattered on the ground. When the breeze stopped, I saw the sun, a big red ball, descending in the west into the bushes. 

I could feel only two beings breathing in that expansive quiet. The elephant and I. I was shivering and the elephant seemed more anxious than before. I had never seen an animal as huge as the elephant. I had heard that no other animal on earth was as big and strong as the elephant. I used to imagine how big an elephant must be, but this one was even bigger than I had imagined. 

Dusk came in some time. The clamouring of birds quietened. Darkness fell. Could you imagine what thoughts must be crossing the mind of a 10-year-old boy in a situation like that? At night, in a forest, sitting atop an elephant chained to a tree. 

Surrounded by darkness and quiet in a forest, tired and hungry, that boy fell asleep sitting atop the elephant. The tiredness after the seven-hour walk and the cool breeze of the forest lulled him to sleep. The boy slept for a long time. Sounds of crawling, rustling, and footsteps came from the forest. These were the footsteps of hunger that were slowly making its way towards the elephant. Slowly, very slowly, a circle was being created around the elephant. That circle shone with several bright, red eyes. Those eyes first stared at each other, then growled, and then disappeared in the darkness—only to appear again. 

The elephant was alerted by the growling. It saw those red eyes moving closer. The elephant used its trunk like a weapon and started whirling it towards those red eyes. 

Those red eyes were of wild dogs whose unity and co-ordination with one another was quite something. The elephant wasn’t a wild one – it had been tamed, used to going from one place to another to beg for food and money from humans. What did it know about surviving in the wild? It had never seen wild dogs hunting in a pack. It was familiar only with dogs in villages, dogs which lived with humans, dogs which only barked on spotting an elephant and kept on barking till that elephant had left the village. 

The wild dogs were not barking. There was some secret communication taking place among them. Immediately, as soon as the elephant started whirling its trunk, the wild dogs separated into two groups and, shaking their bushy tails in front of the elephant, disappeared. However hard it tried, the elephant could not see where those wild dogs went as its neck had been tied to a banyan tree by an iron chain. 

When the next few moments passed uneventfully, the elephant loosened its body and its eyes started drooping. 

But then—the elephant trumpeted loudly all of a sudden and, with a furious force, began shaking both its hind legs. The boy, wide awake, could not understand what was happening, but he had enough presence of mind to hold on tightly to the chain tied around the elephant’s neck. Having secured himself, the boy looked down at the ground and his breathing nearly stopped. Nearly twenty wild dogs had clung to both the hind legs of the elephant and were eating it. Not only that, more wild dogs were coming closer to join the previous pack. 

The oncoming wild dogs were bigger and looked more ferocious than the ones clinging to the elephant’s legs. They too circled the elephant, had a silent communication among themselves, and jumped upon the previous pack to claim their share of the elephant’s body. That entire space inside the forest reverberated with the shrieks of the elephant and of the attacking dogs and those dogs whom the elephant had trampled under its feet. The elephant began shaking its entire body with such force that it seemed the branches of the banyan tree would break and fall off. 

Some time later, though, the elephant turned silent. It lowered its trunk and stopped trying to free its legs from the grip of the wild dogs. It was only panting. 

After some time, the elephant stopped panting and began lowering its hind body, slowly, like a ship sinking in a sea after being damaged in an accident. 

The boy grew alert. He stood up while still holding on to the chain tied around the elephant. He steadied himself and then grabbed the stem of the banyan tree. He clung to the tree with his arms and, slowly, lifted his feet off the elephant’s body. Then, crawling like a quadruped, the boy climbed up the tree. 

The elephant was down. The two packs of wild dogs too had stopped fighting with one another. A silent arrangement had been made between them. The larger ones began tearing into the thick skin of the elephant while the smaller ones tore into the flesh after the skin had been taken off. When the dogs reached the abdomen of the elephant, they were perhaps assured that they wouldn’t need to hunt for the next three days at least, so they too slowed down their biting and tearing. 

The dogs were relaxed, they did not have to worry about food. The elephant too was relaxed, for it had given itself up completely to the dogs, allowed them to devour its body.

Sitting high up on a banyan tree on a full-moon night, that 10-year-old boy witnessed the destruction of the largest animal he had ever seen in his life. He stared at the expressionless eye of the elephant gleaming in the moonlight. Sometimes the elephant blinked the eye; sometimes it fixed its eye up at the sky, at the moon and the stars. When a particular bite was too painful, the elephant raised its head and shook its neck a bit; and then it again lowered its head and resumed staring at the sky. 

A cool breeze began blowing. The leaves of the banyan tree began moving. Some birds chirped. The boy could not know when he dropped upon the thick branch and fell asleep once again. 

Day broke and the forest was resonant with chirping of birds. The boy kept on sleeping. He woke up only when the redness of the sun had turned white and a stream of sun rays fell directly on his face. 

The first sight that the boy saw upon waking up was the head of the elephant. Its neck had turned to one side. Its eye was open and frozen, and two crows were taking turns at the eye with their beaks. The lower part of the elephant’s body had been claimed by kites, vultures, and more crows. The elephant’s belly was torn open and two hyenas had sunk into it, digging and eating. After digging enough, the hyenas left, dragging huge chunks of meat with them. Apart from the larger scavengers, there were also smaller ones, like ants of various kinds. The elephant had voluntarily provided food for a nice part of the forest. 

Such an event could either scar a person or make them fearless for life. Something similar happened with that boy too. The death of that elephant ended all of his innocence and childish fears. That change was obvious. The boy climbed down the tree and, just like that, started walking on a track. 

That boy was, of course, me, but I cannot say what thoughts were playing in the mind of that boy at that time. Either he wasn’t thinking anything, or he had developed a separate consciousness of his own. The way a pair of twins develop within the same womb, two separate streams of thought were working in my mind. At the time of choosing that track, that boy hadn’t known how long and difficult it would be.

He found another corpse along that track, as mangled as the carcass of the elephant. All the bones in that corpse had been broken and sucked dry. Beside that corpse lay a hatchet, a red gamchha, and an amulet tied with a black thread. 

The boy stared at that corpse for some time, then he picked up the hatchet and walked away. It is difficult to tell what thoughts came in that boy’s mind upon seeing the bodies of the elephant and the mahout. The thing is: the boy had changed by the time he walked out of the forest. He was a human only in his body, his mind had turned as thoughtless as that of an animal. 

When I grew up, I came to know that there were two humans growing within me: one, who was fascinated by everything big; and the other, who accepted every destruction as easily and thoughtlessly as an animal. And that That Other had come with me from the forest. 

(This is an excerpt from the Hindi novel, Kaale Adhyaay, by Manoj Rupda, translated into English by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar as I Named My Sister Silence.)

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About the Author:

Manoj Rupda is based in Nagpur, Maharashtra, and is the author of the novels, Kaale Adhyaay and Pratisansaar, and the collections of stories, Tower of Silence and Saaz-Naasaaz, among other books. He is a recipient of the Indu Sharma Katha Puraskar and the Vanmali Katha Samman. His story, “Tower of Silence”, in Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s translation, has been published in the Summer 2022 issue of The Dalhousie Review.

Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar writes in English, and translates from Santali, Hindi, and Bengali to English. His writings have appeared most recently in The Hindu, The Caravan, OPEN, and Fifty Two, and translations in The Indian Express, Poetry at Sangam, and The Dalhousie Review. I Named My Sister Silence, his translation of Manoj Rupda’s Hindi novel, Kaale Adhyaay, is forthcoming from Westland Books.