So I got rammed by an elephant yesterday. Well, actually let's start
from the beginning. One of my friends at work was arranging an outing to
the jungle. So the 24 of us got on a 15 seater
dirty-but-used-to-be-bright-red-and-white bus converted to a 22 seater
by the magic of seats which were upright, and reducing the leg room. The
roof of the bus was actually held together with carpet!! So, we drove
on and ended up in the jungle, at a place with a freezing swimming pool
and a tennis table. It was so cool, unlimited chicken biryani, lassies
and super-thick chutney was the diet. Of course everyone else ate 3 or 4
plates a meal, but I couldn't keep up. In the night we stayed up and
passed a guitar between us and played a few songs- Hindi, English and
even a German one played by a Danish guy who joined us (the Indians LOVE
to sing.) So we went trekking in the jungle to a cascading waterfall on
the way we saw some tigers, played water polo in the ice cool water,
and went on a jeep safari.
Anyway, we saw- peacocks, white monkeys, wild boars, mouse deers (a
tiny deer with short stubby legs) and two cute elephants (+ an evil
monster elephant that tried to kill us.) Now each of the cute elephants
were babies. The first one we saw was drinking out of a pipe that
carried water to the village, which the elephants had deliberately
broken because they liked the cooler water that the pipe carried (clever
things.)
The second one, immediately backed off. Now I said this was a baby
elephant, and the way it works is that mummy elephant is REALLY
protective over the baby elephant, and is never far behind. Now, we'd
just scared the baby elephant. So, you guessed it. The first hint I had
of what was going on was of our guide saying "we got a mumma, DRIVE" I
looked behind (and I was sitting at the back of the jeep) and I saw that
we were reversing into an 8 foot monster of an elephant, charging at
us. (We were reversing as we had parked with the front facing the side
of the road, and we needed to straighten up before we could peg it) And
we pegged it, oh yes we pegged it. Ok, I lied, the elephant didn't
actually collide with us, but that's how scary it was, anyway, I
survived an elephant attack...hmm... I need a T-shirt with that on.