During our years in the Nilgiris, time and again we visited sanctuaries and wildlife reserves tucked into the greenfolds of the Blue Mountains; Upper Bhavani and Avalanche being our favourite haunts while Mudumalai was the most often visited due to proximity and convenience. Those were times when drives into roads within the sanctuary were permitted in your private vehicle provided there was a forest guide to monitor your movements, and lead you by practice and instinct to where the zoics were.
Ours also kept guard (under my polite entreaties), when the lensman got carried away by sights and sounds that were alluring and failed to tread cautiously into the unknown! One December morning, though I cannot quite recall whether it was in Manradiar Avenue, Sand Road, Kargudi or somewhere in the Mavanahalla area. An open jeepload of rambunctious humans, overtook our vehicle and noisily drove ahead of us into the forest area, compulsively slowing down only when the roads became more than a tad bumpy. A transistor blared music to which they whistled in accompaniment.
Soon we heard the susurrus of a stream and as we scanned the wildscape, we paused as we sighted a large herd of elephants on the other side of the stream: tuskers, cow elephants, calves, grazing, browsing or slaking their thirst. The jeepload promptly reacted by waving a large bunch of bananas and taunting the pachyderms by bellowing and booing. Our driver halted the vehicle at a safe distance away from the jeep. Pliant, yet power-packed trunks began to sway and trace patterns in the air for hostile scent.
When the brouhaha refused to cease, the ears, hitherto plastered to the sides of the head of one irate tusker, a veritable colossus, fanned open, as if unfastened by a spring mechanism, and with a brassy trumpet, the animal plashed across the stream, heading for the jeep. Panic-stricken, the jeepload now screamed, more so on realising that the vehicle had difficulty in revving up the incline, with the elephant gaining ground. While I watched paralysed with fear, and tweaked a plea from the book of uncommon prayer, “Lord have mercy on foolish derring-doers and those who revel in defiant devilry,” our children took in every detail of the action-packed jungle drama, too young perhaps to envisage the possibility of a gory end. Patiently we waited until the herd retreated into the rambling wild, leaving behind an ambience heavy with smouldering ire and disgruntled squeals.
Email: kalyanidavidar@live.in