into the river. The boys had left their sharp goads with whatever other harness the elephants had shucked, and now wielded long-handled scrub brushes. It is a vivid image in my memory: Each elephant would suck up trunkfuls of river water and spray its own back as its mahout—who in due course got a pretty good shower-bath himself—pranced along its back, scrubbing vigorously. When each animal was deemed clean enough, its mahout would again bestride the neck and guide his beast to stand in a long line of elephants waiting to be fed. The boy would then walk to the foot of the line, to a kitchen of huge pots slung over wood fires. There, pachyderm supper was being made: rice, with other grains and nourishing ingredients, was cooked into a sludge thicker than oatmeal. That pottage became firm enough to be tipped out and rolled into huge pills the size of medicine balls. Each mahout would in turn manage to get a supper-ball up onto his shoulder and stagger back to his animal, hoisting it up. His elephant would wave its trunk up out of the way, and open what I remember as a pointed lower lip into which supper was deposited, to be contentedly masticated. We couldn’t help noticing that one elephant, in line relatively near the cooking pots, was not being fed. As each mahout went by, supper ball on his shoulder, the poor elephant would lift its trunk skyward and open its mouth hungrily, as though pleading—only to see each meal carried farther to one of
46 | Montana Mouthful
its companions. We had by now found an older man who spoke enough English to help us understand the scene before us. He explained that the elephant was sick, and its supper-ball would come last because medicine would be kneaded into it. We waited, and indeed that elephant was the last fed; we left it at last contentedly chewing. As each elephant finished its supper, we had noticed, an iron chain and shackle was bolted onto one foot—or sometimes two feet were chained loosely together. They would spend the night, our newfound guide explained, browsing on their own, quite likely heading back to the canebrake thickets of bamboo we’d been taken through. They would munch whatever greenery they found, and then would settle down to sleep. For most, a single noisy ankle-chain would be enough to remind them that they were domestic animals and should not try to wander away. Having watched the elephants fed, we went back to the road for supper ourselves, then repaired to our bungalow to catch up diaries. Not until much later would we realize we’d visited a dying industry. There are efforts to preserve the elephant population in the Deccan, but the teak is gone, and it’s hard to imagine anything to match the independent usefulness we’d witnessed. Next morning we breakfasted at the roadside and soon boarded a bus for Mysore, the next stop on our long Indian peregrination.
Vol. 3 • Issue 2