I am an avid animal lover. I love all kinds — the ginormous and the teeny, the amiable and the ferocious, the cuddly and the slithery too. The animal kingdom with its wide variety in size, shapes, colour and forms never fail to fascinate me.
But here’s one animal gives me the chills though! Even a picture of it sends shivers down my spine and that’s the gentle giant — the elephant. The sight of it — a common thing in India — makes me dive for cover, no matter how far it is from me or how imperious the mahout is.
Phobia, an irrational fear of something, is a common affliction and it may or may not have a root cause. People are capable of being afraid of anything, the most common being the fear of spiders and a modern one-nomophobia: fear of being without cell phones!
My mammoth fear of pachyderms probably stems from a bitter- sweet experience from my childhood when I was all of five years old and was my father’s beloved little one.
We lived in a town on the outskirts of Mumbai often referred to as the central suburbs. This town hosted a festival annually, which we all eagerly waited for, and the highlight would be a procession led by elephants.
One year, just before this event, a circus which had an elephant family camped in our town. It was long before banning animals from performing at the circus.
There was this cute baby in the family with hair standing on his head like spikes and his tiny, wrinkly trunk forever in search of goodies! We kids loved to watch this naughty fellow, from a safe distance though, prancing around and annoying his mom like we all did. The mom was quite patient but when he really got on her nerves, she would discipline him by whacking him with her trunk or that’s what we thought. We kids could identify with him so well!
I developed a love and fascination for these colossal creatures and was totally enthralled by them. I missed the elephant family after they moved out of the town and would often talk about them wistfully.
So that particular year, when the annual festival was about to begin, in all the wisdom of a five year old, I declared my most fervent wish to my father — I want to touch an elephant!
Like fathers are bound to do, he took my wish as his command and without a second thought, he meticulously set about fulfilling this dream of mine.
He did a thorough study of the route the pachyderm would follow and found an appropriate spot for us to join the procession. He gave me clear instructions how to inch towards the humongous being and reach out my tiny hand to touch it. He made me realise that I was too puny and might manage to touch the elephant only below its knee.
I was happy with that, knee or head didn’t matter, elephant is an elephant!
The big day dawned and I wished it would be evening soon and the procession would start. I planned whichever way my little brain could and was all set when my father arrived early from work.
Off we went as per the plan and joined the procession. The elephant in the procession that year was the tallest ever and as I looked up I felt it was towering over the clouds. With my heart pounding away and one hand clutching my father’s, I half ran and half walked to fall in step with him.
My father gauged the situation and decided on the opportune moment to touch the elephant. ‘Now’ he commanded with the power and aggression of an army officer.
I was almost blinded by fear as I lifted my palm and lightly brushed the leg of the elephant. It was quite rough and crinkly but before I could even fully feel it, the elephant let out a trumpet that shook the whole town and made people run helter-skelter.
To this day, I don’t believe that it was the gentle touch of my tiny hand that provoked the elephant, but it felt like a conspiracy of sorts to steal my moment of accomplishment from me.
As all hell broke loose, I remember being snatched from under the elephant’s belly and my father running with all his might with me in his arms. I stole a glance backwards and as the sight of the gigantic figure filled my senses, I shut my eyes tight. I had never known such stark terror ever before. It has stayed with me ever since.
We later came to know that the elephant had let out a cry not for any particular reason and unaware of the commotion that followed, it had continued with the procession.
With my father long gone, this incident remains with me as a bittersweet memory of happy times gone by.
Annie Mathew is an educator and writer based in Dubai
