A Lotus Grows in the Mud (30 page)

“I’m so sorry, Goldie. I hope everything is all right now? Is there anything else I can do you for?”

“Yes,” I reply, my sheet up around my neck. “Would you mind tucking me in with the mosquito net? I’m a little scared. I don’t want any insects sleeping with me tonight.”

What a love. He does exactly as I ask, tucking the net tightly around me so that there isn’t even a chance for anything to crawl up inside my bed.

“Okay, then,” he says, looking at me through the gauze curtain, “is there anything else you would like?”

“Yes. I want you to sleep in the bed next to me.”

“Wh-what?”

“I don’t feel safe sleeping alone tonight. Would that be a problem?”

Oh my God, the look on that man’s face! I can only imagine what he’s thinking.

“I am sorry,” I continue, “that I am so nervous about the spiders and snakes and bugs.”

Just then a loud thump on the roof makes me jump out of my skin.

“What was that?” I sit up with a start, my eyes popping out of my head.

His brow furrows, forcing his eyebrows to meet. “The monkeys, I should think. They live here too, you know.”

Bless his heart, he goes to his room, gathers his belongings together, comes back and fixes his mosquito net, and then turns to me bug-eyed.

“There are a few things I have to do. I have to sit with the crew for a bit and plan our shots for tomorrow, but then I’ll be in. Okay?”

“Okay,” I reply, “and thanks. Thanks a lot.”

Worn out by my exhausting day, I sink back into my tented haven and I’m gone. Lights out.

W
hen I wake the next morning, the bed next to mine is crumpled but empty. Did he ever come in and sleep next to me after all? Or did he just crumple the sheets to make me think he had? I’ll never know, but it is the beginning of a lovely friendship.

E
merging from my cabin, blinking into the dappled sunlight, I find that I am in paradise. All the fear and anger and distress of the previous day melts away. Hundreds of birds crowd the treetops, squawking and twittering as a mist lifts itself through the branches. Monkeys chatter beneath them, dangling their young and eating fruit. The canopy of the jungle forms a lush green umbrella high above me, through which golden light streams in brilliant shafts.

There is nobody around, but there is a fresh pot of coffee bubbling on the fire, and some folded chapatis warming on a plate. Pouring myself a cup and eating hungrily, I wander away from the fire, down a slope toward the sound of voices and splashing water.

Kipling Camp in Kanha National Park is the home of Mark Shand’s famous elephant, Tara. Having bought her, emaciated, from some traveling sadhus, or beggars, he crossed India on her back, writing a book about their experiences. I read it on the plane over, having first met Mark at a dinner in London for the Asian Elephant Appeal. He had always planned to sell Tara when his journey came to an end, but, by then, he was in love and couldn’t bear to.

Down at the waterhole, I find Mark shirtless and in shorts, sitting astride a recumbent Tara, scrubbing her wet skin with a pumice.

“Good morning, Goldie!” Mark yells exuberantly. “Come and join us.”

Embarrassed by my behavior the previous night, I step forward shyly and watch from the bank. I’ve never seen an elephant lying down before. Tara is six thousand pounds of flesh and bone, all of it just a few feet from where I’m standing. She is a wild beast, however domesticated, and I’m secretly terrified. She looks like a mass of gray boulders lying in the water, and just as heavy.

“Come on,” Mark encourages, holding out the pumice. “Climb on up and help me bathe her.”

“Yikes!” I say, backing away. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Come on, Goldie, it’s okay.” He laughs. “Come closer.”

Tara’s trunk reaches out toward me, its sensitive tip probing and smelling my outstretched hand.

“She’s just checking you out,” Mark says, “Don’t worry. I’m right here with you.”

“Oh God, I don’t know. I mean, what if she gets up?”

“She won’t. Now come on, get closer and you’ll see.”

Removing my shoes and socks and wading into the water up to my knees, I find Tara’s eye and look deeply into it. She has beautiful long eyelashes, and she is almost in a trance as her eye slowly opens and closes as she enjoys her massage. I know she won’t hurt me.

Swallowing my fear, I wade in deeper, and Mark lifts me up on top of her belly. Perched up on top of an elephant for the second time in my life, I once again feel the prickly skin that tore my tights during a
Vanity Fair
photo shoot. Taking the pumice from Mark, I begin to slowly rub it over her rough folds of skin, increasingly at one with this beast. Washing behind her enormous pink-speckled ears, I watch as she closes her eye in contented delight.

The crew are on the bank filming us bathing Tara. We’re soaked to the skin, but we’re laughing and having the best time. Once she is washed, Tara pulls herself upright and steps majestically from the lake, dripping water. I back away, still in awe of her huge bulk.

Mark and I climb up onto a rock and watch her as she eats her dinner.

“Aren’t elephants dangerous?” I ask him.

“Naturally, no. Naturally, they’re peace-loving herbivores. Indian mothers often leave their children in the care of their elephants, guarded between their huge legs.”

“Like prehistoric babysitters?” I laugh.

“Exactly. But, sadly, there is a new phenomenon happening, as elephants are pushed farther and farther from their habitat, and that is when they turn nasty. Four hundred people were killed by elephants in India last year. In northwest Bengal, a young elephant calf was hit and killed by a train. His mother waited by the tracks, and when the train came by the following day she deliberately derailed it.”

Mark’s story doesn’t ease my mind the following morning when he breaks some news to me: “We’re going to get Tara ready for you to ride her today,” he yells from his position astride her ears as she strolls into camp.

“Oh no!” I say, shaking my head vehemently. “I’m drawing the line at that. I’m not going to ride a wild elephant in the middle of the jungle. What if she suddenly takes off? I have a family. I have a career. I don’t want to die in India.”

Mark laughs. “But, Goldie, this is going to be wonderful. You’ll be great, and I’ll be right up here with you. Tara’s a pussycat. She took me all the way across India, remember?”

I go cold. This isn’t possible, I think. No one warned me of this. I can feel my hackles rising again. Don’t go there, Goldie, I tell myself. Be nice.
To relax my nerves while they fit Tara with a howdah, a kind of saddle, I play a quick game of cricket with the English crew. Sitting in the peanut gallery, a family of monkeys watches us play. Hitting the ball right out of the park, I meet my fellow players’ indignant cries of “But, wait a minute, we invented the game!” with a shrug of my shoulders.

“It’s just like baseball,” I tell them as the monkeys chatter their encouragement.

Mark is one of the most charming and persuasive men I’ve ever met. With the cameras following my every move, he woos me into agreement.

“Hey, guys, I don’t really think that I actually need to be up on the elephant,” I protest as I’m led reluctantly toward Tara for the shot. “I’ll do a lot of stuff. I mean, I washed the elephant, and that was good. I can feed the elephant. I can be by the elephant, but I’m not sure I really have to be up on top. I’m sorry, you know. I don’t think I can do this.”

“You’ll be perfectly all right,” Mark calls down to me from her back, his eyes twinkling. “She’s my baby. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

At that point, a tin of Altoids mints drops from my pocket, and Tara grabs it with her trunk. Before I can stop her, she stuffs the Altoids in her mouth. Her mahout, or trainer, opens her mouth, reaches right inside her gullet with his arm and pulls out the completely flattened tin. I still have it as a memento.

The mahout taps Tara’s legs and makes her go down on all haunches. Before I know it, I am climbing up her backside and into the howdah with Mark. My heart is pounding right through my T-shirt.

“Mahl! Mahl!”
Mark shouts, and Tara gets up as I cling on for dear life.

“Oh my God!” I exclaim.

It’s like going up in a Ferris wheel, up and up, tilting back and forth, side to side, precariously. Suddenly, I’m touching the bottoms of the treetops. So much for drawing the line.

“See, now, that was fine, wasn’t it?”

“I-I guess.”

Mark positions me behind him, and makes me watch carefully to see exactly how he drives his elephant. Sliding down just behind her head,
he gives commands with his bare feet tucked in behind her flapping ears. Then he makes her stop, and he turns to me.

“Now kick off your socks and slide forward to where I am so that you’re sitting right behind her ears,” he instructs. “I’ll move back to where you are.”

“You want me to drive her?”

“Of course.”

“But my dogs don’t mind me,” I say, shaking my head. “Why would an elephant?”

“Let’s give it a go.”

“Oh my God, you tricked me!”

Sliding forward gingerly, I now have my toes behind Tara’s lovely pink ears and am pressing them into her flesh.

“Ooo-h, I don’t know. I don’t know, Mark, this doesn’t feel very safe.”

“Just lean back and hold on tight. Right. Now use your feet to touch her ears, and tell her which way you want to go. That’s right. Now yell
‘Agit! Agit! Chi!’
and kick her left ear with your foot.”

To my complete astonishment, Tara not only begins to move, she moves in the direction I want.

“Oh my God, Mark! Oh my God! This is awesome! I am driving a frigging elephant! I am a mahout!”

I’m in a state of bliss. I can hardly believe the swaying movement of the elephant, her enormous bones shifting left and right beneath me with such grace. I can see everything from my elevated position, the beauty of the jungle and the streams and the wildlife. Dear Tara is so gentle with me, so patient.

W
e prepare to leave Kipling Camp early the following morning. All the people who cooked for us and took such good care of us gather around to say good-bye. As our convoy pulls out of the camp, dear Tara literally runs after us with her trunk in the air, trumpeting. She is saying farewell to Mark, clearly distressed to see him leave. It is so beautiful, like something out of a Disney movie.

The owner of the reserve kindly lends us his brand-new Land Rover,
which is just as well because we have to retrace our journey down that bumpiest of bumpy roads. But this time we float along in style, the most comfortable ride I’ve ever had in India.

During the worst storm, at the beginning of the monsoon season, we fly to Bangalore, on our way to the next and most important stage of our documentary. We’re headed for the Kabini River Lodge, eighty kilometers outside Mysore, once the hunting grounds of the maharajahs. My new guide is Aditya, whom I love instantly, the handsome friend and former traveling companion of Mark’s. A photographer and adventurer, he takes very good care of me.

“Ah, Goldie, I am so happy to meet you,” he says, in an accent that sounds more English than Mark’s. “Get ready for the second part of your magical mystery tour.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“So tell me why you came to India to make a documentary on elephants.”

“Well, first of all, I love India,” I tell him. “I first came here in nineteen eighty. And then when I came back in nineteen eighty-two with my nephew Michael, for some crazy reason I ended up at Kabini River Lodge, to see the wildlife. One morning, on a safari, we came across a clearing, and standing in the most beautiful light was a female elephant grazing, her little girl ellie at her side. They were all alone. I noticed that she had a big white circle around one eye. Our guide told us that she was blind, and that her baby daughter stood watch while she grazed, acting as her eyes, ready to warn of any dangers.

“He called the mother Belly Button, because she had such a prominent one. It was an incredible sight, this mother being protected by her daughter. I was so moved by the connection between these two beasts. I’m coming to try to find her again.”

Aditya smiles. “Well, my dear, you’re in India. Anything is possible. You must trust in destiny.”

At that point, our old car—yes, another Ambassador—coughs and splutters to a halt once again. A huge explosion out of the rusty exhaust pipe makes its own singular contribution to India’s pollution crisis.

“Trust in destiny? Are you kidding? How about trusting in a mechanic every now and again!”

We both burst into peals of laughter. I never thought I’d find someone who laughed as much as me, but I’ve met my match in Aditya.

A few hours later, we pull up to a government warehouse, where our crew has set up the camera ahead of us. They start rolling as Aditya helps me out of the car.

“This is something you must see,” he tells me. “
This
is why you’re here.”