For days the local grapevine had been abuzz with reports of a huge wild tusker haunting the vicinity of the isolated colonial bungalow near Munnar where we live. It’s, of course, an occupational hazard we’ve learnt to cope with over the years.
An avid wildlife enthusiast, I tried to track down the elephant during my evening walks but it was elusive. It confined itself to the dense forests, emerging only at night to plunder vegetable gardens and plantain groves of estate workers. It had been driven away repeatedly but, lured by the prospect of a welcome dietary change, it had stubbornly returned.
Then one moon-lit night last month it unexpectedly barged into our compound while we were fast asleep. Next morning we found it had kicked down the sturdy iron gate. Then it had pulled down a heavy sandbag anchoring the garage’s asbestos roof against the monsoon winds, breaking an asbestos sheet in the process.
Perhaps miffed at finding nothing edible in the flower garden, it had perversely uprooted two water taps and stomped around in the mud. Then it had directed its ire at the lengthy garden hose stacked on the lawn. Having trampled and flattened it, the pachyderm had left it splayed out, looking like an enormous serpent pounded to pulp! Several half-eaten branches with foliage had been wrenched off the trees in the backyard and lay scattered around. Tufts of grass had been torn out of the lawn, sampled and tossed away. And perhaps to leave no doubt whatsoever about its identity, the intruder had left behind a ‘business card’—in the form of a generous heap of fresh and steaming droppings. Maybe it felt the garden needed to be enriched organically.
While exiting, the elephant had passed uncomfortably close to our bedroom window unknown to us—ignorance is truly bliss! Then it had lumbered down the winding road to the nearby hospital, leaving a trail of broken branches, uprooted fencing posts and tea bushes, and many more mounds of dung. I’m no vet, but judging by its prolific output, its digestive and excretory systems seemed to be working to perfection!
The next morning I measured one of the tusker’s spoor imprinted deep in the mud. It had a circumference of no less than 58 inches—an indicator of its massive size. My only regret is that I didn’t get to see it.
George N Netto
Email: gnettomunnar@rediffmail.com