I look at him, that massive fellow about whom I have only
read so far, and have always wanted to meet. When he’s finally in front of me,
all I can do is smile. He looks past me in an absolutely unconcerned manner. He
is used to attention, and he’ll happily do without it. “We finally meet, Rajan”
I say, hopefully in as less a dramatic manner as possible.
He does not reply.
The history of Andamans has always fascinated me. One night
while reading about the islands, I come across the story of its elephants. ‘The swimming elephants of Andaman’ is the
title of the article. Curious, I delve right into it.
The islands have a lot of timber, and in the 70s, the Indian
government wanted to procure some of it. But there were no easy ways to
transport the timber between the many islands. Soon, elephants were sent over
from the Indian mainland, and once trained, they swam between the islands, the
timber sitting dry on their backs. Soon came the 90s and an order from the
Indian government to stop cutting timber altogether. The temples of the South are quick to demand
the elephants be brought to them. And they are, where they will spend the rest
of their lives doing hard work and be meaninglessly dressed up during
festivals.
It is during the same time that Rajan is at Havelock Island.
The owners from a popular resort, Barefoot, like him and do not want him to be
ferried across to the temples. So, they ask his mahout to set him free. The man
wants money, tells them that they can have Rajan if they pay for him.
‘How does one set a
price for an elephant, any living thing,’ I wonder.
The people at Barefoot do not want to give up.
Painstakingly, they write letters to every single person who has, ever, stayed
at their resort and ask them to make any kind of contribution, little or big,
anything that they can for it would help Rajan. There is an overwhelming
response. As it goes, there are nice people all over the world, and money pours
in, and Barefoot is able to buy off Rajan.
The article ends by saying that, all that Rajan does these
days is roam about Havelock, yawn a lot and eat ‘like an elephant’. Sometimes, he goes swimming in the sea with
people. It is as much of a ‘happily-lived-after’ conclusion as possible.
A year after I read the article, I stand in front of this
famous, venerable elephant. I pat his trunk, thinking that delightful display
of affection might just make him warm upto me. He raises his trunk and rests it
momentarily on my head. Is he trying to
bless me? Does he think he’s God? Clearly, all this adulation has gone to
his head! We must stop calling these
fellows ‘venerable’, I muse.
We move towards the sea, two girls, me, the mahout and
Rajan. The girls are from Switzerland
and they look terribly excited, just to see him. Who am I kidding, I am as excited as they are.
We step into the water, and oddly, it feels cold. Odd,
because the sun is beating down mercilessly on this hot October day. But it
renders several colours to the sea, and I can see seven different shades of
blue and green. I have never seen the ocean as beautiful as that in the Andaman
Islands. Rajan waits on the sand, looking right at us as we plunge into the
water. Maybe he is judging us, checking if his partners for the day can swim
half as well as he can. The mahout does not hurry him, we have already paid the
money. What was once a noble motive by Barefoot has now become glaringly
commercial.
We play in the water, the two Swiss girls and I. They can’t
speak a lot of English so we just laugh a lot. But we are all waiting for
Rajan.
And then he comes, putting that first giant foot into the
water, as if to part it just like Moses once did. Soon, he’s fully entered into
the water. He looks beautiful.
I strike the water furiously, I want to stay ahead of him,
see if he can beat me in a race. I look back once, and almost gasp as I see a
huge elephant looming over me. He’s catching up fast. I go underwater, and it
is as beautiful a sight as it is strange. Watching those giant legs inside water , it is almost as if they were rubber.
It is the most surreal thing ever. I go close and wonder how much more I
can. In a moment of weakness, I decide that it is all okay and I go touch his
body lightly. He moves on, gracefully. I have stopped swimming now, I just hold
on to him and let him guide me wherever he wants to. I have let go of all my
fears. He moves on, gracefully.
It is an unexplainable feeling. Here I am, holding onto a
beast that can kill me with one sudden movement of his leg. But I feel
absolutely secure. I am not even sure if he can feel my miniscule weight
tugging on to him, but I feel that he is taking each step carefully, making
sure I do not get hurt. One false
movement and I could perhaps die. But the truth is, I have never felt as alive.
It is an unexplainable feeling. This feeling of suddenly
being aware of every single sense of yours, and letting go of it, all at
once. It is as if we are the only two
beings livng, and everything else, for that moment is inanimate. The truth is,
this sudden realization of feeling Alive is awesome. Some day you must try this adventure bathing experience, for there is nothing like it.
Half an hour later, we are all sunning ourselves on the
beach. The girls are polite and ask me if I would like to join them for lunch,
and I agree. I drape myself in a towel
and we walk up to Rajan. The girls gurgle some sweet nothings to him. I look past
them, at the sea, and beyond it.
There is no sign of the mainland.
