The inspector decided to meet with the owner of the elephant before taking any action. He was not keen to stay in the village, fearing the unexpected. The gunman also knew that shooting an elephant in musth in a village was not as easy as his previous feat of shooting an elephant in an open place. The owner was extremely distressed about the destruction and fear Neelan was creating, but at the same time, he did not want Neelan to be shot.
“It is most unusual for Neelan to harm anyone, let alone kill,” the owner said.
“In a day or two he will become normal,” he added.
“Your elephant is mad. It is killing people. It will kill more people if we allow it to run around unrestrained,” the inspector said.
“The government has to protect the life and property of citizens. I am ordering the gunman to shoot your elephant and kill it before it kills more people,” the inspector stated his position.
The owner pleaded with the inspector to allow him one more day. He said he was sure that Neelan would calm down. A few villagers who had gathered there also did not want Neelan shot. Despite the fear and destruction, they all loved Neelan as a member of their families.
“I will compensate for all the losses. I will ensure that the families of the two people who lost their lives will be looked after,” the owner stated. The police team left quickly after giving stern instructions to inform them about the elephant’s activities regularly.
Neelan continued his move from one street to the other for the whole day. No one saw him drinking water or eating food. His regular food was coconut leaves apart from cooked rice and jaggery. There were plenty of coconut trees in the village. But Neelan had no appetite or time. He ran around without aim. He was in extreme pain or distress due to musth.
The owner himself was in distress. If Neelan continued his run, the police would return the next day to shoot him. He wanted to avoid this at any cost. The only way to avoid that was to immobilize Neelan unless the elephant itself calmed down.
“How will we immobilize Neelan?” asked one of the villagers.
“Cones,” answered an elderly person.
A plan was drawn up to mine the places, which Neelan would pass through most, with iron cones. Several iron cones with heavy bottoms and sharp needle-like upper part, would be buried in Neelan’s path so that only the sharp needles protruded out. When Neelan passed that way, he would step on one or more of those needles. The needles would pierce through the soles of Neelan’s feet and the resulting injury and pain would immobilize him. The owner was reluctant to implement this plan because he knew the disastrous consequences of such injuries. But he had no choice. He gave orders to open the underground store and retrieve the cones. Early the next morning, the paths would be mined with iron cones.
Well before dusk, the villagers who were on the top of the trees came down after making sure that Neelan was nowhere near and went home. Even at home, they kept vigil and hardly slept.
At dusk, in the twilight, Neelan approached a small hut made of thatched palm leaves and pulled down part of it. He looked inside. A young woman was lying on a mat on the floor. By the side of the woman was a newborn child. The woman saw the elephant, but did not realize the danger she was in. Neelan would not harm her. Neelan was a friend of everyone in the village. She had no idea of the happenings in the village during the past two days. She did not know that Neelan was in musth and that he was running wild.
Neelan stood there for a few seconds. He looked at the mother and the child once again. Slowly he retreated. He returned to the road. But he did not move further. He stood there for several minutes. Then, Neelan came back to the hut and again looked inside. By now, there was a small kerosene lamp burning by the side of the woman and child. Neelan lifted some of the thatched palm leaves he had pulled down earlier and put them back on the hut. The palm leaves slid down. The woman heard the sound of the palm leaves falling on the hut and sliding down.
The woman lifted the kerosene lamp and carrying it, came out. There she saw Neelan standing still. She saw streams of tears coming out of his eyes. Neelan was crying. The woman lifted a pot filled with water from the hut and placed it in front of Neelan. Neelan lifted his trunk, drew the water from the vessel and pushed it into his mouth. The woman touched Neelan with compassion and affection. At that time, the child woke up and the woman went inside.
The next day, early in the morning, the owner passed by the tree under which Neelan usually spent his night. There, he saw Neelan lying down, at peace with himself and composed. The owner heaved a sigh of relief.
3 Wrong Airport
I handed over the two tickets together with our passports to the check-in staffer at Gatwick airport. He was a pleasant-looking chap. He checked the tickets and the passports and asked me to place our two pieces of luggage on the conveyor belt. I did so and waited for the boarding passes and our passports. The clerk entered our details on his computer and waited for the boarding passes and luggage tags to come out. But nothing happened. The computer did not respond to his commands. He took our tickets in his hands and started checking every entry. He looked at me.
“I am sorry. You are not booked on this flight,” the staffer said.
I tried to absorb the import of his statement.
“Sorry, but why not? We have confirmed tickets,” I said, feeling somewhat foolish.
“Sir, your flight is from Heathrow,” the staffer told me.
I felt incredulous. My son who was watching me from a distance, joined me to find out what was transpiring between the staffer and me.
“But we landed at Gatwick two days back coming from Dubai and we are going back to Dubai. Our tickets are confirmed with time and date. We cannot miss this flight because we have to take our onward flight tonight from Dubai.” I said feeling upset with his advice and added,
“It was booked through our usual travel agent. He did not tell me that we would land at Gatwick and take off from Heathrow.”
“Sir, I understand. Maybe he forgot to tell you,” the staffer said sympathetically.
“No problem”, I told the staffer and turned to my son and said, “Let us go to Heathrow.”
He looked at me incredulously.
“Dad, Heathrow is 45 miles away. It will take a good two and a half hours to get there.”
I looked at my watch. The time was 1:45 p.m. The flight take-off time at Heathrow was 2:45 p.m. If we left Gatwick immediately, we would reach Heathrow around 5:00 p.m. Even if we flew in a helicopter, we would not catch our flight.
I was unfazed. I did not know what my wife was thinking. She was talking to our son. I thought, ‘what the heck! If we had to stay in London for a day or two more, that was fine. We were on holiday and we did not have any pressing engagements. I turned to the staffer and asked, ‘Can you check if we can reschedule our flight from London to Dubai by the next available flight and from there to our final destination?’ The staffer did not raise his eyes from his computer screen or not even showed any sign of having heard me. He seemed immersed in what he was looking at.
My wife and I lived in Dar es Salaam, the capital city of Tanzania. It was one of our annual ‘pilgrimages’ to London to spend a couple of days with our son who was living there and continue our journey to our hometown for annual holidays. We had a pleasant flight to London with a stopover in Dubai and we landed at Gatwick. We passed through the immigration and customs, collected our luggage and came out of the terminal. Our son was waiting for us. We were excited to meet after a long break. We set out to our son’s flat.
In July, the weather in London was most agreeable to me. The days were sunny and warm. The nights were pleasant.