elephants in the jungle

last night, in an an attempt to finally see some elephants before they move on to greener pastures, literally, we went to the plot. me, my didi (big sister) filly and her daughter eddu, my mummi saru (filly's mother-in-law), her youngest son rodney, and aunty esther and her son micah.

the electricity had gone off and i was over at filly's when her husband (my jija) eugene phoned to say the elephants had come back to graze through the harvested pastures for whatever skeric of nutrients they could find. he was already there with their two youngest daugthers, eli and angel and their house-helper ashvani, as well as sunny - one of the farm boys, and the guards that work at the plot, protecting the crops.

i ran to get my camera and mozzie spray and off we went, all seven of us perched upon a 5103 john deer tractor. through the taru village, across one dry and one almost dry riverbeds, through the jungle and into the plot. it was bumpy, to say the least. but we had a lot of fun.

while we did see elephants that night - only 20-40m away grazing through the harvested crops, the reality of their strength and brutality was felt only by one of the workers. as we had been on our way, he had decided he was too drunk to stay at work, and set off for home.

for some reason, partly due to his alcohol consumption but also just his general nature, he decided to chase the elephants that were grazing along the boundary. he was on foot and throwing things at them. at some point, he fell. no one really knows what happened next, but at this stage it seems like the one of the elephants intentionally or accidentally stamped on his chest.

he was brought back to the small straw hut and as he muttered the story about being trodden on, no one was sure what quite to believe. but the boys emptied the straw out of one of the tractor-trolleys, hooked it up, transferred him in and off we all went back to the farm.

in the car on the way to the hospital, he pleaded with the men not to let him die. despite all the promises that they so desperately wanted to believe, there was nothing they could do. before they reached the nearest hospital, 20 minutes away, uncle naresh breathed his last and was pronounced dead on arrival.

today is a sombre day. one of sadness. lessons. post-mortems. disbelief.

a day that makes me realise life in india is not only hard, not only a struggle, but a huge risk.

we live off the land. but we have taken the land from some very big and powerful creatures. respect for nature has taken on a new meaning.

seeing the elephants was pretty surreal. and an experience i'm sure i'll look back on and be thankful for.

but knowing a man died a relatively slow and rather painful death right before my eyes - where even as a nurse, i could do nothing; and as a woman, i could do even less - has hung heavy on my heart today.