Guwahati’s saving grace is its position, built around rolling emerald-green hills along the southern bank of the Brahmaputra, the largest of India’s rivers. Known to the Assamese as the Lohit, or Red River and to the Burmese as the Bhullambuthur, which means ‘Making a gurgling sound’, it rises in Tibet and flows for 1,800 miles before discharging an estimated 500,000 cubic feet of water per second into the Bay of Bengal. Off to the left, I caught my first glimpse of this massive waterway, which remained virtually uncharted by European explorers until the end of the nineteenth century. It was broad, dark and brooding, its fast-moving surface alive with whirlpools, eddies and rapids as if some Hindu god was churning it from beneath. Fishing boats and ferries chugged upstream, straining against the current. Two Christmas pudding-shaped islands sat in the middle of the river surrounded by brown and yellow sandbanks. On the far shore, soft afternoon light played across rolling hills thick with jungle, while downstream, car windows glistened as they passed over a high, mile-long suspension bridge.
We turned down a filthy side street, its gutters heaped with festering rubbish, a welcome playground for India’s flourishing rodents and carrion. Over one shop entrance a sign announced:‘M/S D. CHOUDHURY & SONS’.
‘Okay. Bus,’ I cried out above the noisy engine. ‘Stop! This is it!’
The auto-rickshaw came to an abrupt halt. I stumbled out, half dazed, and paid the driver. He seemed amazed when I handed him a tip. Clearly it was his first – who else but a crazy foreigner would reward such suicidal driving? He nodded gratefully before turning round and heading back in the direction we had come, the repetitive Bengali music still blaring from his speakers.
I approached Mr Choudhury’s shop and pushed the door ajar. A wide desk dominated the otherwise sparsely furnished, dimly lit room, its surface littered with a collection of odds and ends – a can of lubricating oil, a telescopic sight, a used shotgun cartridge filled with paper clips, and half a dozen dusty back issues of The Shooting Times. Against the far wall stood a glass cabinet full of rifles with polished chestnut-coloured butts and shiny barrels. Next to it, I spied some fishing rods, nets and tackle. But there was no sign of the owner.
‘Hello. Is anyone there?’ I called out as I stepped inside.
‘One moment, please,’ came a voice from the back. ‘Take a seat. I’ll be with you shortly.’
I sat down in the chair in front of the desk as instructed, still taking in my surroundings. Half a dozen black-and-white pictures hung unevenly from the damp-stained wall. One showed a handsome young man with chiselled features sitting on top of a magnificent-looking male elephant with long, thick, white tusks. In a smaller print, the same youth was kneeling over the body of a dead leopard, rifle in hand.
‘There used to be thousands of leopards in Assam,’ came the same voice, now just a few feet behind me. ‘We used to bag them quite regularly. Today, all we’re allowed to shoot are rats and crows.’
Startled, I leapt up from my chair and found myself standing face to face with the same man who appeared in the photographs on the wall, or rather an older version with greying sideburns and sagging jowls. Dressed in camouflage fatigues and a Guwahati Rifle Association baseball cap, he looked every bit the hunter – right down to his glasses, which were square, concave and, for a trained marksman, surprisingly thick. They were custom-made bifocals and the lenses reached above his eyebrows so that from certain angles his eyes seemed to bulge like goldfish in a bowl.
‘Hello, I’m Dinesh Choudhury,’ he said in a soft voice.
‘Tarquin Hall,’ I replied, shaking his hand. ‘Very pleased to meet you.’
For a moment or two, a self-conscious unease crept over me as I was gently appraised through narrowed eyes, rather as a hunter might watch an animal in the wild.
Mr Choudhury did not appear to be the menacing character I had built up in my mind. If anything, he seemed gentle, with a slightly quizzical air and a boyish charm. Yet at the same time, there was something supremely confident about the man. He had the considered, introspective look of someone who makes few mistakes, his prominent chin and set mouth suggestive of resolution, even of obstinacy.
Olive-skinned with brown eyes, he was unlike the other Assamese I had seen in the street, most of whom had distinct Mongoloid features. With his aquiline nose and arched forehead, he might have been mistaken for an Italian. Indeed, as I discovered later, he was of Aryan stock, a descendant of Hindu Rajasthani princes who had fled to Assam three hundred years earlier to escape the Mogul invasion.
‘So what brings you to my little shop, Mr Hall?’ he asked at last, playing absentmindedly with an empty brass bullet casing that lay on the desk.
‘Well, I’ve flown all the way from Delhi to find you. In fact I’ve been travelling for several days to get here,’ I began, trying to sound as enthusiastic as possible.
‘And you are a journalist. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ I answered, realizing that Das must have tipped him off. Either that or he had made a calculated guess. Whatever the case, hacks have a bad name the world over and I was keen to present myself in an altogether different light.
‘My main interest in life is travel writing,’ I explained, taking a copy of my first book from my backpack and handing it to him.
He inspected the bright cover, glancing at the publisher’s blurb. Then, thumbing through the pages, he paused to look at some of the photographs. Encouraged by his apparent interest, I continued: ‘That book’s about some journeys I made when I was younger. In one chapter, I go rattlesnake-hunting in Texas,’ I added, hoping to strike a chord.
‘Very interesting,’ he said, smiling at me. ‘You’ve done a lot of things for someone so young – is it not so?’
My attempt to engage his interest was working, I thought. Now that he was primed, I felt confident of tackling him on the subject of the elephant hunt. Would he be leaving soon?
‘Yes, I think so. Probably tonight.’
‘Ah, right,’ I said, feeling a tingle in my stomach as I formulated the next question in my mind. ‘Well, I was wondering if you would allow me to tag along, so that I might write about it later?’ I paused. ‘I think it would make a fascinating book.’
‘Yes, yes, sure,’ replied the hunter. ‘I’m quite happy for you to come up to Sonitpur.’
A wave of relief and excitement swept over me.
‘Oh great! Thank you very much,’ I said, amazed at how easy this was proving.
But then Mr Choudhury raised a finger and added the word ‘However’. He crossed his arms and stiffened.
‘However,’ he repeated, sitting back in his chair and frowning, ‘you understand that you will not be able to come with us when we hunt the elephant. You will have to stay in the camp.’
My skin went clammy and my stomach started to churn. Had I heard him correctly? He wasn’t going to allow me on the hunt? Did that mean he suspected my motives? That he feared I wanted to expose him and the elephant-shooting racket? Was he being friendly just to lead me on?
All I could say was, ‘Why can’t I come?’ in a feeble, childlike whine.
‘Well, the tusker has already killed thirty-eight people,’ explained Mr Choudhury. ‘That makes him a formidable opponent and very dangerous. Also, we will be travelling in areas where there are insurgents who are fighting for an independent Assam. I couldn’t be responsible for your safety.’
My chance of a great adventure was fading fast. I had not come all the way from Delhi to sit around in some crummy camp. For a split second, I felt like arguing my case but then thought better of it. The only thing to do was to accept Mr Choudhury’s offer, drive up to Sonitpur, spend some time with him and try to