The Elephants in My Backyard

by Rajiv Surendra

  My childhood hobbies had included growing all kinds of weird plants in glass jars and old fishing tanks, so I was fascinated by his botanical knowledge. When we started talking about the carnivorous Nepenthes (pitcher plants), we fell into a frenzied state of plant-obsessed madness!

  On my last Sunday in Pondicherry, Father Antonisamy invited me to accompany him to a small inland village. He traveled there every week, giving a sermon to about fifty villagers.

  “Surendra,” he said, “you will benefit greatly from witnessing how these people live. I myself am humbled when I am reminded of a simpler life.”

  I was wearing my favorite white linen shirt that morning. My obsession with linen was partially due to the fact that it has the incredible ability to absorb ten times its own weight in moisture, wicking away perspiration from the body and cooling it down. Images of the British in colonial India came to mind, clad in linen suits and dresses as they trekked through wild jungles.

  Father Antonisamy and I matched that Sunday—he in his crisp priest’s cassock and I in my spotless white shirt. The air conditioner was turned on and the jasmine flowers had filled the car with their scent. We drove mostly in silence, comfortably enjoying each other’s company without having to say anything.

  We arrived at the tiny village and he parked the car on the curb of the main road. The village itself was made up of about thirty little mud huts with woven roofing made of dried palm leaves. Father Antonisamy pointed out the building that would serve as the chapel for the day and suggested that I wander around and explore while he gave his sermon.

  I could hear the voices of the villagers singing Christian hymns in Tamil while I slowly made my way through the rows of huts. In one home, a small television sat on the packed dirt floor, with a man lying on a straw mat watching intently. Two dark-skinned women in thin, brightly colored cotton saris were outside their huts, at the only source of water in the village—a pipe that jutted out of the ground, with a little faucet attached to it. The women smiled and looked at me inquiringly. They both had gold nose studs pierced into both of their nostrils. I gave them a friendly wave.

  Things were quiet; my tour was over in five minutes and I sat outside the chapel while Father Antonisamy finished his sermon. “Remember to treat one another with kindness and respect,” I heard him preach in Tamil, “show love and consideration to those who are less fortunate and those who are in desperate need of help.”

  We had driven halfway back to Pondicherry late that afternoon, when we noticed people gathered on the road. Father Antonisamy slowed down the car as we neared the crowd, mostly men in loincloths and sarongs who were standing by a big, white transport truck that was in the middle of the road, flipped on its side. Two police officers, dressed in khaki uniforms and carrying batons, turned to face us, and one held his hand up to indicate that we should stop. I started getting nervous—the boys had told me stories of corrupt police officers, rampant throughout India. They both sauntered over to the car with menacing looks and motioned for the window to be lowered. Father Antonisamy and the officers quickly exchanged words in Tamil that I couldn’t quite follow. Then he referenced me to the police officers by nodding his head in my direction, and pleadingly said in Tamil, “But I have a guest with me, it would be very inconvenient. Please, this is not suitable . . .”

  The officers began to sound somewhat aggressive while Father Antonisamy continued to plead with them about something, his hands still on the steering wheel. When they turned away and headed back toward the crowd, I assumed we were free to go, but Father Antonisamy didn’t move the car.

  “There has been an accident, Surendra,” he explained, and I could hear the frustration in his voice. “A man on his bicycle was hit by the truck and is injured. The officers are insisting that I take him to the hospital in town.”

  “Why don’t they take him?” I asked, confused.

  “This is exactly what I was asking them myself, Surendra,” he said, shaking his head. “They say they must remain here to survey the situation, but here is a perfect example of the political corruption we are plagued with—they simply do not want to soil their vehicle.”

  I didn’t quite understand what Father Antonisamy meant by “soil,” but just as I began to guess, the officers headed back to our car, followed by a group of villagers who were carrying the injured man. His dark brown skin was glistening with sweat and his blue-and-green–plaid sarong, tied up to his knees, was covered in dirt from the road. The white, sleeveless undershirt he was wearing was torn in places, and he was writhing around in pain. The major injury appeared to be his right hand, covered with a yellow cloth bag that was wet with dark blood. The villagers opened the back door of the car while Father Antonisamy attempted again to convince the officers to take the man to town themselves, but they ignored him, not making eye contact, and simply watched as the villagers lay down burlap sacks on the black leather upholstery in the backseat. And then they gently dumped the man into the car and shut the door. Now this guy was our problem.

  “Aiyo! Aiyo! Amma! Kadavulay!” (Oh my God! Oh my God! Mother! God almighty!) the man was shouting in Tamil, continuously, as we picked up speed and began down the road again.

  “Don’t worry,” Father Antonisamy yelled to the man in Tamil, quickly glancing into the rearview mirror, “we will be in town soon.” Then he turned to me and whispered in English, “Surendra, I am extremely sorry for this inconvenience. Please . . . don’t look back there.”

  Well, of course I looked back there. The man was rolling back and forth, his head jerking violently, grasping his right wrist tightly with his left hand. The yellow cloth bag slipped off and I could now see that all the fingers of his right hand had been partially severed, dangling from tendons and bits of bone. Everything was red and bloody. I must have gasped or cried out in shock, because Father Antonisamy was turning to me and begging me not to look back at the man. “I will faint if I see blood!” he yelled. “ You will also faint! Please, don’t look!”

  His hand was dripping with blood and I was looking around for something to tie it up with. I looked down at my clean, white linen shirt. I paused just long enough to think, I know—I’ll use my tank top instead! As I quickly unbuttoned the linen shirt and started to pull off the tank top, Father Antonisamy became even more frantic. “No, Surendra! Please! Do not inconvenience yourself! You will faint!”

  As much as I respected and admired Father Antonisamy, I just wanted to shout, “Shaaaaadddaaaaap, already!” but I blocked out his yelling and climbed into the backseat. The man was still crying out in pain as I gingerly wrapped his hand in my tank top. Within a few minutes, I could see blood starting to seep through the thick, white cotton. My own hands were now bloody.

  After wrapping up the man’s hand, I rummaged through my leather satchel for a small bottle of hand sanitizer, taking in the severity of the situation and wondering with fear whether I had any open wounds or cuts on my hands. I rubbed the gel all over my palms, smearing around the blood that had dried onto my skin and wishing I had something to wipe my hands with.

  When we reached town, Father Antonisamy honked his car along all the main streets, weaving through traffic to the hospital. ER workers eased the man out of the backseat and into the hospital, where he was rushed into surgery. The man’s blood had dried on my hands. Father Antonisamy and I said little to each other on the ride back to my hotel.

  “A train still runs on Sundays . . .” is a detail from Life of Pi that appeared early on in the book.

  It was about four in the afternoon, and the botanical garden was full of people—Indian families sitting under trees, picnicking or lounging on benches and enjoying the shade of the huge jackfruit trees. I had found the train. And it was actually running . . . this much was true—it still ran on Sundays. The ticket was three rupees, and after safely stowing away the thin, yellow ticket stub (a valuable memento) in my copy of Life of Pi, I got into a little compartment surrounded by kids and toddlers. The train slowly made its way
through the botanical garden, and the kids laughed and smiled to their parents, who were following nearby on foot.

  I perused the worn and battered paperback Life of Pi that had brought me here. Then I opened it up to one of the early pages of the story and found exactly what I was looking for: “A train still runs on Sundays for the amusement of the children. But it used to run twice an hour every day. The toy train had two stops: Roseville and Zootown. Once upon a time, there was a zoo in the Pondicherry Botanical Garden . . .”

  I hadn’t noticed the train when I first visited the gardens with Father Antonisamy, in the middle of the week. But now it was Sunday afternoon. Yann had taken the factual children’s train and woven it into his fictional Pondicherry Zoo.

  I sat on the train for three trips around the gardens and although I was trying my best to enjoy the ride, I was haunted by the gruesomely vivid image that had seared itself onto my mind—that bloody hand with its severed fingers, tendons exposed. Could that man’s hand be saved? Was that man even important enough, from an Indian social perspective, to warrant proper medical attention? If so, who would pay his medical bills? Father Antonisamy? I wished with all my might that I had turned down Father Antonisamy’s invitation to accompany him. I wished that we could have left town a little later, or a little earlier, fatefully avoiding the scene on the road. I wished, for a moment, that I had never come to Pondicherry in the first place.

  The next morning was Monday, my last day in Pondicherry. I was a bit late getting to school and as I walked through the front gates, everything was quiet—the boys had already gathered for their morning assembly in the courtyard and I could faintly hear Father Antonisamy’s voice through the loudspeaker. As I got closer, I began to make out what he was saying in Tamil. I stopped behind a pillar, out of view, and listened. “We fear the ways of the West, deeming them cold, too forward and devoid of tradition,” he said. “But yesterday I witnessed the compassion and care for a fellow human being that was unaffected by caste or creed. I myself refused to help a man in desperate need. It took someone from so far away to show me the error of my ways and the ways of this country.”

  The assembly came to an end and hundreds of boys made their way out of the courtyard. First, it was one small boy, about ten years old, who noticed me. I remembered him; once, during lunch, I had a pack of Skittles that I had brought from Canada and was sharing it with the Dudes, when he boldly came up to us and asked whether he could have one. Deepak pushed him away, but I told him to come back, and poured a few of the candies into his open palm. He was a cute little kid and his heart-shaped face lit up when he popped them into his mouth, so I gave him the whole pack. He ran away excitedly, and shared it with his group of friends. He now stood before me and took my hand, shaking it.

  Then there was another boy shaking my hand while saying, “Thank you for helping a fellow Indian.” And another, “Thank you for your kindness.” And yet another. There was a crowd of boys all around me, each waiting to shake my hand. Tears welled up in my eyes.

  The Dudes of Petit—Akash, Deepak, Nosey, and Karthik—squeezed their way through. “Thank you, Raaa-jeeve,” Akash said quietly, smiling with his eyes twinkling. He extended his hand. I opened my arms, pulled him close, and hugged him. “Please don’t forget us,” he whispered.

  The wheel on the bottom of my suitcase had annoyingly broken off in transit to India, with a sharp bit of plastic now dragging on the floor as I pulled my luggage to the entrance of the hotel. I was wearing my freshly washed linen shirt, which billowed in the afternoon breeze as I waited for the car that I hired to take me back to the airport in Madras. The driver pulled up and opened the trunk, and although he moved close to pick up my suitcase, I had begun lifting it on my own. I felt a pull on my shirt and then heard a rrrrriiiiiiiiiip. The sharp shard of plastic had latched onto the fine linen, which now had a gaping hole in it, about five inches long.

  Pondicherry was saying goodbye. I had come here as a complete outsider but was now a part of the chaos, the unexpected, the loss and gain. I had hesitated to use this shirt when it was needed most and now it was worthless. I couldn’t help but smile to myself, shaking my head and sighing. Wherever the message was coming from, whatever the lesson I was supposed to learn, I got it—I understood. I didn’t need this shirt to remember it all. I would never, ever, forget.

  From: yann_martel1963@yahoo.com

  To: rajivsca@yahoo.ca

  Subject: RE: Hi there!

  Date: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 08:39:14

  Dear Rajiv,

  Things are in flux. Night is out and Fox hasn’t yet filled his big shoes. No, still haven’t seen Mean Girls. My girlfriend did, and she enjoyed it. Panama hats are actually made in Ecuador; they got the name Panama hats because at the time, they transited via Panama (and its famous canal) on their way to Europe. They have hats here they call Panama hats, but I think they’re just hats made in Panama and not actual Panama hats. Or they’re imitations. There, all you ever wanted to know on Panama hats.

  Yann

  7.

  IT WAS A SWELTERING-HOT JULY afternoon in Toronto, and I sat in the corner of Daniel Stong’s log cabin, gently maneuvering a tuft of sheep’s fleece. As it twisted into a fine thread and wound itself onto the wooden bobbin of the antique spinning wheel, the year 1838 carved into the deeply patinated wood, I sat in silence and contemplated my situation. A huge fire was burning in the fieldstone fireplace beside me, with large copper and brass pots hanging from the crane, bubbling with plant dyes for the wool. I was dressed up like a pioneer, wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt and striped cotton trousers held up with suspenders that were concealed by my taupe-colored linen vest. Sweat beaded up on my forehead.

  No Life of Pi movie. No audition. No school. Back to my summer job.

  My older sister spent her summers working at the bank, with Ma. My younger sister was taking extra courses in summer school. I felt incredibly lucky to be spending my summer, just like the previous four summers, in my safe place, working as a historical interpreter at Black Creek Pioneer Village—the greatest summer job a boy like me (a chicken-keeping, wool-spinning freak) could have.

  Sitting on the pine floor of Daniel Stong’s log cabin as a second grader, I had felt an instant connection with the pioneers who had inhabited this tiny dwelling. When I began volunteering at Pioneer Village as a teenager, Stong’s log cabin (First House) quickly became my favorite building to work in. Over the years it had become a home to me, a hallowed place, not only because of its breathtakingly authentic feeling of stepping back in time, but because of the interpreter who had worked here for over twenty years, Kate Rosen. She was in her late forties, soft spoken, and had the innate ability to bring this log cabin and its inanimate objects to life. I was inspired by how dedicated she was to everything she turned her focus to —whether it was wiping off the pair of iron scissors after each use to ensure they wouldn’t rust, or listening to me vent about the shit my dad was putting my family through. When I spoke to her, she’d look me dead in the eyes and genuinely made me feel like I was the only other person in the world. There were moments in that house where deep conversation, not just about my home life but about our mutual obsession of all things past, left us both in tears.

  Having her as a mentor at work gave me the tools to do what she did best—historical interpreting; Kate was a genius at engaging visitors. I would sit beside her and sort wool as she captured the attention of both four-year-olds and obnoxious teenagers, knowing exactly what to say or do to draw them in and leave them with a sense of wonder for the arduous lives of the pioneers.

  “I don’t know, Rajivski,” she once said to me nonchalantly as I marveled at the attention she was giving to dusting the bottom rung of one of the old rush-seated chairs in the cabin, “I sometimes feel like these things have a way of responding to you, if you take care of them.”

  Kate retired the summer I graduated from high school, and when her position opened up for First House, I went from part-time volunte
er to full-time, seasonal employee. I knew I had big shoes to fill, but I continued in Kate’s tradition, treating that house like it was my own.

  That summer was my second year in Kate’s old position, keeping the flame of Daniel Stong’s legacy alive. My return from India in the spring had entailed a brief period of culture shock. Whizzing home on the highway, stocking up on supplies at Wal-Mart, and stepping back under the warm and evenly pressured flow of my beloved shower took a bit of time to readjust to. I missed the Dudes of Petit, the flower ladies, and eating off of banana leaves. Now I was lingering in a place of purgatory, wondering what was to happen with my Pi goals.

  When I left for India, I had envisioned coming home with some kind of indication that Life of Pi would begin production and I’d have an audition to pour my soul into—but now the project had been abandoned, and with no director attached, it was unclear how long it would take to get things back up and running. I was surprised at myself for not feeling defeated or discouraged. Something inside told me that I didn’t need to worry, that I was the only guy who could play this part, and that when it did come up for grabs, I’d be ready.

  So, there I was that summer morning, spinning, contemplating, and reminiscing, when the light that streamed in through the open front door was blocked momentarily. I looked up to a group of a dozen eight-year-old kids in neon yellow summer-camp T-shirts stepping into the cabin with their teenage camp counselor, a heavy-set black girl wearing a bandanna. The tiny room was now crammed full of people.

  “Hello,” I began, taking my eyes off the strand of wool that I was spinning and looking up at them briefly. “This building’s called First House because it’s the oldest one in the village.”

  The kids peeked into the two small bedrooms and quietly gazed in awe at the details—how small the beds were, the bumpy look of the straw-filled mattress, and the little doll made out of corn husks that lay in the wooden baby’s cradle. Two boys were standing in front of the fire, staring at the flames in a trancelike state.