We climb up the island’s sloping plain, past tall green fields of sugar-cane where the men are already hard at work with their sickles. Behind the fields are the mimosa-hedged avenues that lead to the red-roofed homes of the plantation owners and the chateau of my master the Surveyor. The weather is perfect for a ride upcountry, the sun not too bright, a few clotted clouds skimming the blue, and butterflies dancing in the breeze. Shanti skips along the bridle path, energized by her morning snack. She is only nine, and already much taller than any of us and weighing nearly a ton. Hurrying beside her on foot, I hear the song of a paradise flycatcher, its melody carrying me back to my tribal homeland. I murmur a quick hymn of praise to the Lord of the Blue Mountains, who fathered all these widely-dispersed wonders of creation.
Our visitor is seated high on his swaying howdah, a slim young Englishman in a sweat-rimmed hat peering out at the world with deep-set blue-grey eyes. It must be his first elephant ride, for he runs his fingers over Shanti’s ears and carefully observes the way she steps daintily on the tips of her toes. My master trots alongside, his horse Godolphin stopping now and then to sample the tender island grass, so different from the tall, stiff grasses from my childhood that we used to gather for thatching our huts and temple.
Shanti rears up suddenly, her foot raised towards me. The visitor, propelled even higher, clutches hard onto the edge of his saddle. I let him hang there white-knuckled while I examine her foot. Her sole has been pierced by a thorn from a fallen rose branch.
“Mun-deedu,” I tell her, and she kneels down slowly.
The visitor dismounts, and I roll Shanti on her back. She instinctively lifts up the foot, and I scrape away at the tough, fatty tissue. Her smell is stronger today, the natural sourness of her hide mingling with the scent of dung and wild hibiscus.
“I notice that her soles have thick pads,” the visitor remarks to my master. “That must be the reason for the elephant’s noiseless step.” He kneels, caressing Shanti’s ear again. “Perhaps her feet sense vibrations through the ground, which would require that her step be free of distracting sound.”
“You are probably right,” my master replies, still mounted on the unruffled Godolphin. He has thick mutton-chops and a weathered red face, with weary eyes used to gazing far into the distance. “Though when we brought her over from India, after hoisting her with a crane into our ship, she was far from silent-footed and created a terrible ruckus. This old devil of an elephant-man still hasn’t learned to control her!”
Shanti glances at me, her long eyelashes blinking demurely. What a journey it was for us to cross the blue-black water! When the storm hit, the ship began listing, and to stop her stamping and roaring, I had to jab my poor charge with a rusty goad.
She lies back, letting me gently spread apart the folds of skin on her foot. Her mouth is open, her pink tongue hanging loose and her tiny tusks showing. There is no more perfect companionship than ours, between two such dissimilar beings. It reminds me of how Our Lord, the very first dairyman, created from his Oneness the buffalo and then all the vast multiplicity of forms.
“I suspect that she is not yet of child-bearing age,” our visitor remarks. He removes his hat, turning it thoughtfully as he watches me work. “Let us say that this elephant begins breeding at fifteen and goes on till seventy, bringing forth, given that elephants are slow breeders, three pairs of young. Had she instead been born in the time of the Pharaohs, today, three thousand years later, she would have innumerable descendants alive on earth!”
Our visitor seems rather clever, and his notion of an earth overrun by elephants seems preferable to me than one infested by humans. Though what would those elephants eat? Perhaps it would be best for them to sprout wings and migrate to the heavens, like the white elephant Airavata who became the vehicle of Lord Indra.
The visitor smiles. “How many would you reckon?”
My master laughs, dismounting from Godolphin. “I am not one to calculate such sums without pen or paper. You forget that I am merely an engineer and surveyor.”
“The answer, Sir, is almost ten to the nineteenth power!”
“That number is beyond conception,” my master exclaims, extracting from his breast-pocket a blue checked kerchief of the finest Madras cotton.
As he mops his forehead, the breeze ruffles my dhoti — a garment that I rinse each evening after bathing Shanti. Hanging it up to dry on a branch, I usually retire in my loincloth to nestle beside her under the stars, and dream. Last night I was flying over silhouetted mountains and meadows towards Amunawdr, the hidden valley that the souls of our buffaloes visit after death.
“Of course,” the visitor continues, “we won’t find any such population explosion.” He slips his hat back on and adjusts it as if he’s looking into a mirror. “You see, Sir, the count of every living being is constantly being held in check by nature’s law of selection. That is how so many species have become rarer, and in some cases, extinct.”
“Mr. Darwin, are you implying that all of Creation has evolved in this manner, governed solely by these laws of nature?”
The young man points to Shanti’s trunk. “The message of science is simple: Nature will select certain differences, like a longer trunk, over others, because they are better suited to their environment. The creatures with such fitter characteristics are the ones who will survive and reproduce.”
My master tsks sadly. “Sir, you will be persecuted as a true blooded heretic! The Book of Genesis is, after all, the bedrock of our civilization.”
The book he mentions is, like all others, unfamiliar to me. My father was respected for his learning, but like the rest of our tribe in the Blue Mountains, he was never taught to read and write. Luckily, the knowledge and wisdom we needed to survive could be gleaned from the ancient poems and stories we recited at our ceremonies. How could that essence be found in books authored by people who knew little of our lives? Those so-called bedrocks of civilization would almost certainly have ignored people like us.
Though illiterate, we are still well-suited to the modern world. We remain masters of our own language and those of our neighbors. And as polyglots, we find it easy to acquire new tongues. Before he passed on, our father wisely advised us to hide our English fluency, to give us the upper hand over our rulers.
My master’s face is now flushed. “Mr. Darwin, if what you assert is true, does it not suggest that we might help Nature along? Shouldn’t the best-adapted races be encouraged to multiply for the speedier evolution of a more perfect world?”
Who knows how nature unfolds? While the two gentlemen converse animatedly about multiplication, I finish extracting Shanti’s thorn, and she rolls back, relieved, onto her belly. Play time! I can’t help nuzzling her. What I do know is what I feel at this moment, with Shanti. And she seems to know the same. As does, I am sure, Godolphin, who is busy grazing.
“Ponnian!” my master exclaims. “Yepati yeruvatu kaatu!”
I obey quickly, bidding Shanti to stand. I stroke her trunk twice, and at my secret command she lifts it, stiffened, just high enough for me to climb on, and hoists me smoothly up onto her back. The Englishmen clap at my performance, and Shanti stamps her feet nervously.
There is no reward for such tricks, other than the assurance of a daily ration of four ounces of rice, two of dal, and one of salt. I remain grateful for even these meager offerings, for it is enough to fend off starvation. At the end of the month, if I have conducted myself well, I am showered with five rupees, which is saved for my return at the end of the contract. But returning would mean separating from Shanti.
I can’t say this is a worse life than my time as a mahout in India, but neither station compares favorably to the days of my childhood, when we tended our buffaloes up on the heights. Our father, whose herd was the largest, was also a priest and the guardian of our shrine. We lived moderately well until the Englishman decided to beautify the land he had occupied, bringing in eucalyptus from a faraway land. Those ghastly trees, whose oily secretions were supposed to still all our aches and pains, invaded our high meadows, robbing our herds of their lush pastures. Meanwhile, the new rulers enjoyed their sport, hunting jackals and tigers in the jungles below and dispatching countless birds. And there was no law of nature then or now to hold it in check.
That was how we came down to the plains, becoming pariahs. My parents sadly perished in the famine that followed the failure of the annual monsoon, but I was spared, finding my calling among elephants. I was assigned to Shanti, helping her train for the khedda, where she would serve as bait for trapping wild elephants. It was then that my master-to-be -- a guest of the unctuous rajah -- spotted us.
The sun is high now, and Shanti is flapping her ears to keep cool. I help our thoughtful visitor climb back on in the regular way, and he nods to me.
“I had no idea that the inhabitants of India were so good-looking,” he confides to my master, as our party ascends higher up the mountain. “This man’s fiery expression, along with his snow-white beard set off against the blackness of his skin, gives him such an imposing aspect! And yet the old fellow remains so quiet and well-disposed, displaying a natural bond with his animal.” Having said that, he stares quietly at me.
My master eyes me in turn from his saddle. “As you know, after taking possession of the island two decades ago, we could no longer avail of African labor. The Indian coolies are indispensable to our progress, for they work hard and demand little. Some, however, are outright stupid, like our old bootlicker here. Can you believe that he still hasn’t a word of English after all these years? But thanks to his countrymen, our export of sugar has increased seventy-fold. This has afforded the islanders some prosperity, including the pretty little theater you visited the other night.”
The climb is steep now, and I have to hurry to keep pace with Shanti. There are mango trees growing beside the bridal path, but their fruit is thin and stringy.
“It was so kind of you to take me to the theater,” the visitor replies. “It was my very first exposure to Richard Cœur-de-lion and the opéra comique. However, lacking your talent for languages, I had to guess at the French by searching for cognates in the broken Spanish I acquired in South America.”
My master shakes his head. “The material is ill-suited to British tastes. Our French planters are still nostalgic for pre-Revolutionary fare.”
From her look, I can tell that Shanti is less interested in the opéra comique than in her next meal. Perhaps in preparation, she relieves herself of a steaming pile of dung, which immediately attracts a swarm of iridescent butterflies. The stench is strong, and the two Englishmen wrinkle their noses. This is truly my world: elephants and dung and butterflies.
“Here are your rocks of elevated coral,” my master tells our visitor.
We have arrived at a cliff, from where the sea comes into view, green and glistening and translucent, with a few sailboats already out fishing. In the far distance, I can see the white plumes of waves crashing on the reef.
“I am working on a map of the earth’s reefs,” the visitor says, adjusting his seat. “When finished, it will serve as a guide for navigation, while also providing evidence for my theory of how coral atolls are formed.”
Shanti spots a movement to our right. A flying fox appears above us, with its dog-like snout and furry arms and legs sewn into huge transparent, leaf-like wings. We gaze in awe as this magnificent creation flies along the edge of the cliff.
“From its dazed expression, I suspect it is sleepwalking,” our visitor says. “My grandfather Erasmus often spoke to me about somnambulation in other mammals.”
“It may have been lured out by the scent of mango,” my master says. He dismounts from Godolphin and takes a few steps, peering out to sea. “The wind is blowing westward, which indicates the season is changing.”
“Watch out!” Shanti rears up as the bat turns, diving low towards her. Our visitor, so adept at unveiling the secrets of nature, tumbles off his perch and with a cry, lands with a smack on the hard rock.
“Mootai! Damn blackamoor can’t even control his beast!” My master is livid.
Shanti follows Godolphin towards a mango tree, with the bat riding calmly on her back, while our visitor remains sprawled on the ground, blood oozing from his mouth. The scene is an intimation of the final victory of Nature over Man, and I know which side I’m on. I nevertheless rush to attend to the fallen genius. He has torn his lip. I beg my master for his cotton kerchief, which I dutifully apply to the cut.
The visitor sits up slowly. “Thank you,” he says, as I pull him up. He dusts his clothes, as my master promises in the choicest words a terrible flogging.
“I noticed how attentive you were,” the visitor tells me, dabbing his lip while my master looks on. “I reasoned that you knew our language and were closely following all our discussions.” He pauses, seeing my hand tremble as I hold onto Shanti. “I wonder, however, whether silence is an optimal survival strategy.”
Inderjeet Mani
Inderjeet Mani is an Indian-born former US professor and scientist now based in Thailand. His first novel Toxic Spirits (now in its second edition) is based on his experiences volunteering with hill-tribes in Thailand’s Golden Triangle. In addition to his new novel The Conquest of Kailash, which deals with Buddhism and the search for identity, Mani has also published six scholarly books and nearly fifty shorter literary pieces.
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