In 1979, I was on a government-conducted trip to Topslip, a wildlife sanctuary in the Annamalai forest range in the Niligiris. A group of pressmen, photographers, reporters and a television crew from Doordarshan and the Films Division were discussing the prospects of sighting tigers and other animals at Chennai’s Central Railway Station.
At our guesthouse, elephants were waiting to take us into the forest. We decided to leave at 3.00 p.m., as we had been told that the best time to sight wildlife was early morning or late evening. Our first ride into the forest was accompanied by excitement, enthusiasm and hopes of spotting a tiger. After three hours of rather bumpy and uncomfortable elephant ride — through which we had to hang on to both our cameras and to the protective railing on the elephant’s back so that we didn’t fall off or drop our cameras — we returned to the base without sighting even a deer!
We retired after an early dinner as we wanted to get up early next morning. We had been warned to keep our doors and windows locked and not open them under any circumstances, as bears were known to frequent the area and knock on the doors in the night!
The next morning, we decided that the photographers would ride on one elephant, as we felt that the reporters’ non-stop chatter would scare the wildlife away. After four hours of no sightings, our bodies began to protest.
During the evening trip, our hopes of spotting a tiger were down to almost zero. We wanted to at least see elephants, deer, jackals, bears or even foxes. As we returned at dusk, we spotted some wild bison grazing. We had to shoot against the light but this was the only animal we had spotted in over 12 hours.
That evening, the Doordarshan team was worried as it had been announced that images of tigers, elephants and other wildlife would be telecast. And all they had had were images of a few bisons shot against the light! So they coaxed the forest officials to let the camp elephants into the forest. Next morning, a herd of elephants — their saddles, chains and bells removed — walked and charged through the forest. We shot our photos.
We returned to Chennai and I was waxing eloquent to my colleagues about how I had braved the charge of wild elephants to get my photographs. I was proudly exhibiting the prints to a very appreciative audience, when one of my friends looked closely at the print and asked, “Since when did wild elephants wear bells?”
That, perhaps, was the only elephant in the herd whose the bell didn’t come off.
