by M Krishnan
The herd was in the lantana, close to a field of comparatively short grass, when we sighted them at 3 o’clock. There were eight of them, five adult cows, three heifers, and no bull. We stopped some sixty yards away, and promptly our elephant began to feed.
They looked up at us, heads high, noses in the air, ears forward, ready to bolt. Apparently our immobility reassured them, but they moved deeper into the lantana, and kept looking back at us over the tops of the twigs. After ten minutes of this uneasy scrutiny, during which we took good care not to stare back at them, they seemed still undecided. Then, suddenly they lay down in the heavy cover.
We zigzagged in with frequent halts, ever so gradually, but even when we were quite near they would not get up. Knowing the futility of attempting against-the-light pictures of gaur lying down in dense bush-shade, I decided to withdraw, and then circle around the bushes into the field. Once we were in the field we could not see them, and they too lost sight of us, but we were exposed to their more acute and apprehensive senses of hearing and smell. After moving close in from this blind side, we circled back to see where they were. They were still in the lantana, lying down and placidly chewing the cud!
I will not tire you with the many approaches and withdrawals we made. Finally we had them where we wanted them, in the field, grazing more or less alongside our halted elephant, which was also sampling the grass. They were over forty yards away, but were grazing towards us, so that all that we had to do was to wait for them to move closer. They seemed completely indifferent to our presence, but I am sure there was no conscious or deliberate evaluation of our harmlessness behind that indifference, it was just that gaurs are sociable creatures and used to elephants in their forest haunts, and that our approach had been so very casual, gradual and seemingly haphazard that they were accepting us for the time being till some betraying sound or scent alarmed them.
The cloud-filtered sun lit up the field softly, but with wonderful clarity. Slowly the gaur grazed their way towards us, the great dorsal ridges clear of the grass-tops, heads low and hidden, seeking out and cropping the young shoots with unhurried relish, the short tails flicking busily from side to side. It was a scene charged with a serene pastoral beauty which, for many minutes, made me forget my mission. Then, with my camera held ready I waited, thinking of a bit of verse I had read as a boy:
The cattle are grazing.
Their heads never raising.
There are forty feeding like one!
There were eight, not forty, here, but they were feeding like one all right, their heads never raising. I whistled sharply and instantly every head was up, broad ears switched forward, gazing up at me in mild surprise. I took a snapshot of the nearest cow (the largest in the herd), but realized at once that that picture, with the head thrown back and a mouthful of grass clamped between closed jaws, so that the stalks projected stiffly on either side like whiskers, could never have any naturalness or convey the idyllic charm of the setting though it might be morphologically sharp. However, by waiting and moving a little in or away, by 5 o’clock I had all the pictures I wanted, and thereafter we turned homeward, taking care not to alarm the grazing animals with too hurried a departure.
Financially, and in damage to equipment, this trip has been unfortunate, but long after I have recovered from such setbacks the memory of that afternoon will stay with me.
1958
13
Onti, or a Lone Champion
There was a regular wall of screw pine, ten feet high and grown in a thick tangle, bordering the shallow streamlet on either side, and as we approached a gap in it some heavy animal rose from the nullah and crashed its way through the farther wall of screw pine. From the sound of its passage, we knew it was something really large and massive, and for a moment my mahout turned as near grey as his dark complexion would allow.
‘Onti!’ he whispered.
There was a singularly aggressive lone tusker in that area, whose movements we had to study each day in order to avoid a possible brush with him in the jungles, and that morning we had taken the usual precautions. ‘Onti’ in Kannada means ‘singleton’, i.e. a lone bull—and knowing the likely reactions of this notorious tusker to men on elephant-back, we had every reason to feel apprehensive, but a second later we could see for ourselves that it was no tusker that we had flushed from the cool retreat of that fenced-in watercourse. It was a gaunt old gaur bull, black as night and huge, with thick, blunt horns that swept out in a wide curve—the lack of fodder of dry March was reflected in the way his great ribs stood out on his sides.
He stood there, on the open ground beyond the nullah, nose high in the air, staring at us. I had our elephant stopped at once, and after a long, level look he walked casually away. Then he lowered his muzzle to the charred earth, black with the recent forest fires, and began to nibble at the tiny sprouts of grass, just coming up.
Knowing from experience just what that meant, I looked away and kept still. Suddenly he threw up his head and stared at us again, then moved a few steps to one side and again began to nibble at the young grass. Ten seconds later he would raise his head quickly and look at us again, and if, in the meanwhile, we shifted our stance ever so slightly, or stared back at him, he would bolt—and in hilly country, when a gaur decides to be elsewhere, an elephant has no chance of catching up with him.
After a while he gave up his desultory grazing, and turned to face us squarely. Then I had our mount moved slowly forward under his direct scrutiny, steering a zigzag course and halting at every third step. Such wind as was there was in our favour, which was due to no lucky accident.
Here I may go into a pet theory of mine. Since it concerns wild creatures, it is conditioned by many factors, the most important of which is that it has the best chances of success in places where the fauna has not been disturbed or harassed by men—and even in such places, success is never sure. I believe that it is possible, when on elephant-back, to get fairly close to true forest-loving animals (which habitually depend less on sight than on hearing and scent) by studiously keeping the wind in one’s face, and making the approach only when the quarry is using its secondary sense, i.e. sight, and looking at one. A seemingly aimless approach, made very casually, is then possible, if one can prevail on the mahout and oneself never to look directly at the animal—when one is near enough, the wind does not matter, for the height of the elephant helps to carry the human scent above the head of the animal. Till one is really close, however, the wind must be studied, irrespective of obstacles in the path; one whiff of humanity, and the gaur that has been placidly watching the men on the elephant’s back is away at a gallop—in Mudumalai, and many other sanctuaries, the animals certainly do look up at people atop the elephant.
Finally, the big bull sauntered off, and we crossed the nullah and followed him, keeping to one side of him and keeping our distance. We were about a hundred yards from him, on ground sloping gently upward, and bare of undershrub. Half a mile away, as I knew, there were some patches of coarse, waist-high grass that had somehow escaped the fires. If we could head him towards those patches (no great feat), I thought I had a fair chance of getting a picture of the bull lying down.
Again no hard and fast rules can be laid down, but in forests where the undershrub has been burnt down, and in the daytime when there is a hot sun, gaur (or sambar, for that matter) are apt to lie down in any patch of grass or other cover, when not alarmed and when being followed. Since this move is instinctive, the fact that the grass fails to hide them does not seem to lessen the sense of security that the animals feel in the cover.
I got my picture, and then I had time to have a really close look at the great beast. The wide sweep of the horns and their blunted tips gave no idea of their real size except in a front view, and the size of the body made the head seem small—even the ridges at the base of each horn were so worn that they did not show up except in certain lights. A very old bull, obviously, and quite enormous. By the sheerest accident while following him we
had to pass a big herd of gaur, and I had the opportunity to compare the herd-bull (a very big bull which I knew well) with this lone bull. Only then was his great size and spread of horn apparent—that herd-bull, which was definitely no farther away looked positively subadult by comparison!
Twice again, during my stay at Mudumalai, I came across this lone bull, much the biggest gaur I have ever seen (incidentally, he was mistaken for an elephant by a forest officer who saw only his black-looking mass behind a bush). The second time was a week later, when he already seemed less gaunt—the grass was coming up rapidly. That was at sunset, and right on top of a hill, and I tried for a picture against the light, and naturally failed …
The third time was three weeks later, the day before I left those forests. I was out in the afternoon, looking for flying lizards, and he was lying down on a bank, chewing the cud. His ribs were no longer visible, and his hide had taken on a dull sheen. He jumped to his feet with a quickness that surprised me, and took a course more or less parallel to ours. My camera, intended for close-ups of a small reptile, was equipped with a short lens, and I would have to get quite close to the gaur for any worthwhile picture. Repeatedly I urged the mahout to go slow, but familiarity breeds contempt, in mahouts as among other men. Ignoring the pressure of my hand on his back, the mahout made straight for our quarry. The big bull stopped dead in his tracks, spun around to face us, threw up his head and snorted—then he came straight for our elephant, without lowering his head.
He pulled up a mere yard from us, and shook his horns in the elephant’s face, with quick, fierce, sideway tosses of his head—I know this sounds fantastic, but that was just what he did, a rattling of sabres that was most impressive.
I felt so taken aback that I failed to take a single picture, and our peace-loving Tara promptly turned tail and bolted. Thereafter our only concern was to stop our frightened mount somehow, before she charged through a clump of bamboos.
Some day, perhaps, I will revisit Mudumalai, and meet the old champion again, but if I do I shall make no attempt to get close to him for a picture. Not that I feel apprehensive, but I have by now a sincere respect for his desire for freedom and privacy.
1959
14
Five Encounters
For over six decades, right from my college days, I have been wandering over the forests and scrublands of India, investigating their wildlife. And in all that time, and in spite of dangerous risks run in ignorance of animal ways, only on four occasions have I been in the shadow of imminent death, once when I almost walked into an enormous sloth bear while looking up at the fruits on a tree, and thrice when following wild elephants on foot by myself—it is best to go alone, for a companion doubles the chances of being detected. There was no time to feel frightened then: one is wholly preoccupied with escape, and it is only after escaping that one’s liver turns to water and belated fright reaction sets in. Strangely, it is not these crises that I remember most vividly, but comparatively minor encounters with wild animals that excited me, and filled me with wonder. I recount some here.
Long ago, I was in service in a small princely state in the Deccan, in a narrow, green valley girt round with a double ring of hills. The flora was distinctive (as noted nearly a century ago by J.S. Gamble in his monumental Flora of the Presidency of Madras), the bird life was rich, and the mammalian fauna varied, featuring sambar, wild pigs and leopards among the larger animals. My official duties were heavy and laborious, but compensated by unspoilt nature all around.
I do not shoot, and disapprove of all hunting, but my best opportunities for seeing animals lay in joining the occasional shikar parties organized, usually just outside our state. If there was to be a beat, I liked to stay with the beaters: that way one could see many birds and small animals usually missed, hares, mongooses, monitors, snakes and the like. A hillside was being beaten towards the guns on top by a dozen men, and I had been posted as a stop—that is, to turn what came along a game patch back into the beat. It was almost evening, and I was standing where the path ran through a line of tall bushes, blocking the gap. In those days I used to supplement my olive-green clothes with a cap having a deep peak and side-flaps to prevent incident light causing my spectacles to glint. I stood some distance from a bend in the path, and nothing came towards me. Then, as the beat was nearing its end, a pair of four-horned antelopes came tripping round the bend.
The chowsingha, or four-horned antelope, is the only wild animal which, in the buck, has an additional pair of little knobhorns above the eyes and below the regular spike-horns on top of the head—the doe is hornless. Even otherwise it is unique—exclusively Indian, without any close relative anywhere, capriciously distributed across the country on low hilltops, given to drinking every day during the hottest hours, and unlike most antelopes, not gregarious but going about by itself or in a pair. It is small and compactly built, just two-foot high, a greyish brown on top and furry white below, and has a dainty gait.
I stood stock-still and the pair came tripping along in no hurry, almost side by side. They did not see me till they were quite near, only some ten feet away, and then froze instantly, and half-squatted. Then they rose in a brace in the air and flew right overhead, to my incredulous surprise. The most athletic of our animals, the leopard, could not have jumped so high from a standing start—in my thick-soled boots and cap I stood six-foot tall, and they cleared my head with a cubit to spare! By the time I could turn around, they had disappeared into the bush cover behind me, and I just stood there, almost unable to believe my eyes. Then slowly my amazement turned to a feeling of relief and gladness, that they had escaped the beat so comprehensively.
The road from Masinagudi to the Moyar hydel project is over a dozen kilometres long. On one side of it is the concrete-flanked Maravakandi canal, carrying the waters of the project, and on the other the north-eastern border of the Mudumalai sanctuary. This part of the preserve features alternating stretches of dense forests and clearings, and wild elephants frequent it after the rains. The rainwater collects in shallow, linear pools in some of the clearings, and elephants like to drink at them, standing five or six in a row. I had long wanted to photograph them drinking here, and that forenoon offered the opportunity.
A herd was approaching a clearing through the forest, a large and boisterous herd to judge by its many voices. Old Mara and I stood on the road, facing the clearing. He knew the area well, and I did not, and he said the herd would cross the clearing, enter the belt of forest beyond, and proceed through it to a sandy clearing still further off where there was a chain of pools: we should give them time to get to the water, and then take the path they had taken through the trees, the only path there was to those pools. I do not like having anyone with me on such occasions, but needed Mara’s guidance, for it is easy to lose one’s way in dense cover.
We did not have long to wait. The elephants came on to the clearing in small groups, twenty of them, and entered the belt of trees beyond. We waited ten minutes for any lagging behind to come out, and none came. We had to go quite some distance into the clearing to reach the point of entry into the tree cover, and overshot it. And as we were retracing our steps, we saw that two cow elephants had entered the clearing just behind us, and were crossing it towards the trees. They were to our left, between us and the road.
There was no bush to hide us, to try running away would most probably provoke a charge, and standing still we were conspicuous. We sank to the ground and crouched low. ‘Take off your clothes,’ whispered Mara urgently. For a moment I did not understand him, then did. He had already stripped, and gathering the fresh elephant dung in front of him in his hands, was smearing it all over himself. Quickly getting out of my clothes, I followed suit. It was nauseating, but necessary. The ground breeze was blowing directly from us towards the elephants—the overpowering stench of the still-warm dung would mask our man-smell.
The two cows sauntered to the trees ahead of them and went in. To our consternation, we noticed that a cow w
ith a young calf, and behind them a big tusker, had now come on to the clearing from behind us. We continued to crouch and stay still. Slowly the cow and calf crossed to the trees in front, but the tusker stopped directly in a line with us, and very near: he was less than the length of a cricket pitch to my left. I dared not turn to look, but after what seemed an unbearable ten minutes, and was probably two, I glanced sideways. He was standing at ease, flapping his ears (always a sign of contentment), with his trunk lowered right to the ground—and he had sharp, curved, murderous-looking tusks! After an age, I stole another sideway look, and he was still there, flapping his ears.
The most remarkable thing in existence is not the behaviour of wild elephants but of the human mind. By now my curiosity had overcome my dreadful apprehensions, and inch by inch I turned a little to my left, to watch. The tusker was standing at a patch of Mimosa pudica (the sensitive plant, the ground herb whose tiny, feathery leaves shrink and close when touched) covering the ground in a flat, dark-green spread. The spread was in bloom, with a great many tiny flower heads, like minute, pink badminton balls, dotting it all over. Laboriously the great beast was gathering the flowers in the crook of his trunk-tip and conveying them carefully to his mouth!
After a while he too crossed over and disappeared into the tree cover, and getting to our feet, we raced to the road, crossed it, and plunged into the Maravakandi canal. The water here is never clean and clear, but there was a distinct current, and in no time at all it had washed our skin free of every trace of elephant dung. In my hurry, I had left my clothes behind in the clearing and sent Mara to get them, while I climbed out and let the sun and air dry me.
(PS: I can find no reference to elephants fancying Mimosa pudica flowers in the literature on the animal, but can vouch for this authoritatively. Incidentally, the flowers have a faintly acid taste in the human mouth.)