Real Estate Contemplations in God's Own Country

Thank you for the music; I can still hear it now. That sweet trumpet tone: rich, beautiful, sharp-edged with anger (an ex-girlfriend suddenly comes to mind). The rest is a jumble. A looming grey shape in the darkness, growing very large very quickly. A rapid swerve and acceleration. And briefly in the splash of our headlamps, an anxious little elephant.

- Pranav Capila

Thank you for the music; I can still hear it now. That sweet trumpet tone: rich, beautiful, sharp-edged with anger (an ex-girlfriend suddenly comes to mind). The rest is a jumble. A looming grey shape in the darkness, growing very large very quickly. A rapid swerve and acceleration. And briefly in the splash of our headlamps, an anxious little elephant.

We are in the North Wayanad Forest Divison, Kerala, gliding from Mananthavady to Thirunelli on a road as smooth as the local coffee. It has rained earlier in the evening, the air is cool, a thin mist sleeps on the hillsides. A sign flashes by, declaring this the ThirunelliKudrakote Elephant Corridor, warning us that elephants have right of way.

A car coming the opposite way stops; its driver flags us down, tells us about the elephant on the road. We try to give her a wide berth but we are too close for her comfort. Fearful for her calf, she trumpets, and charges.

It is a day book ended by elephant encounters.

THE FIRST METRIC

It is eight o'clock that morning and Sathyan is asking me if I'm ready to run. Sathyan, a forest guard with the Thirunelli Forest Range, B.Com graduate, once a clerk at St. Paul's School, Jaisalmer.

I look at him, confused, then see through a tangle of bushes what he has already heard. There's an elephant about 30 m. away. Zigzag, I tell myself, don't go in a straight line like you did in Pakke (The Forest of Improbable Dreams; Sanctuary Asia, Vol. XXXV No. 4, April 2015). But the elephant surveys us briefly, masticating, flapping its ears, then moves off to join its companions in the clearing below.