“If I live through this, I will consider myself reborn” I thought, clinging to my 14 year old daughter’s shirt to avoid sliding off the Rajnee the elephant. We were riding the leathery gray giant as she swayed her way up a stone staircase. Bella and her 10 year old sister Sophia sat between the elephant’s caretaker, or mahout, in the front, and me in the back. We were sitting on blankets with nothing but each other to hold onto. The angle of Rajnee’s back slanted dangerously as she climbed the stairs. I was seconds from sliding off and falling fifteen feet to break my bones on the stone steps below. All I could reasonably hope for was that my daughters would manage to stay on.
We met Rajnee the day before, at the ashram beside the river . India’s domesticated elephants serve humans in a variety of ways. Some work in the jungle carrying loads. Ancient royals travelled on elephants and used them in battles. Rajnee was a festival elephant. During Hindu holidays, she was painted bright colors, adorned with flowers and paraded through the villages. Rajnee had her own caretaker, her mahout. This 80 pound slip of a weathered old man lived in the stable beside her on a straw mattress.
We brought Rajnee bananas and she took them out of our hands with her slime-tipped, hoary trunk. . We were fascinated by the massive but gentle creature who radiated intelligence and looked like she was from another world. Rajnee let my children stroke and hug her. The mahout, through a young translator, offered us a ride during tomorrow’s daily walk for a small fee. We accepted.
When Bella, Sophia, and I returned to her stable the next day, the mahout grunted a command, and Rajnee kneeled down to the ground. He threw blankets on her back and secured these with rope around her belly. Barefoot, he climbed onto the crook between her head and neck, and gestured to us to scramble on behind him. As I painfully straddled her wide back, I realized there was nothing to hold onto. I started to say something, but he grunted again, and Rajnee stood up. Her front legs went up first, and I screamed as my girls and I tipped backwards and nearly slid off her backside. Then her back legs stood too and her back evened out. I knew, in that moment of terror, that this was not the best idea. But with no common language between me and the mahout, there was nothing to do now but ride.
Elephants ambulate their enormous bodies with a languorous swaying motion. I relaxed into the motion. For a few minutes my girls and I felt like the queens of the world. We were ten feet up, observing life along the river as we passed by. Beautiful shrines decorated the bases of spreading banyan trees. Women in colorful saris walked with pots and baskets balanced on their heads. Boys played cricket with weathered sticks and battered balls.
We rode to a wide stone staircase leading down to the riverbed. “Oh no she is not….oh yes, she is.” I thought. Rajnee turned her massive bulk and slowly descended the steps. We leaned in and were fine. But I knew that coming back up these would be… interesting. I looked for something to hold onto. I could almost clutch the knot of rope that held the blankets we were sitting on. But as I examined the knot in the frayed rope, I saw that it could easily come undone and the ramifications of the blankets sliding off…..never mind.
Rajnee walked through the vast dry riverbed and I tried not to think about the return climb on those stairs. I breathed into the moment; the swaying, and the blue sky, and my daughters and I atop this elephant like maharanis, for goodness sake. I looked at the people we passed, conversing in Hindi with the ancient mahout. I imagined they were saying, “Today is your lucky day, isn’t it? Three foreigners to ride with you, ah? What will you do with the money?” I hoped they were not saying “Look at this. This would never pass American safety standards. I wonder if these girls will manage to stay on? Remember what happened to the last bunch who rode?”
Rajnee turned around to head home. We got to the stairs, and as she climbed them I fell to my death in my mind, and then we were at the top and I was still on, clutching Bella’s shirt with desperate clammy hands. We paid 800 rupees and walked away intact and whole. Thus, I was reborn on the back of an elephant, mostly just the same me but also a little more fearless.
Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.
Very readable piece. I have also ridden on an elephant in the jungles but was well secure on a howdah (something like an upturned cot with ropes around the legs). Yes, it is an amazing experience, but full marks to you and your children for the manner you rode.