Dear Followers
Anyone who visits India expecting a Jungle Book-style tapestry of abundant wildlife is, the Sage can confirm, set for a major disappointment.
Sure, there's plenty of monkeys bounding around many of the major cities, but the most common variety are rather ugly, red-faced little runts, rife with an impressive range of unpleasant diseases and more likely to steal your packed lunch than pose cutely for a photo. Then there's the cockroaches and geckos, inevitable companions in many hotel rooms and train carriages, and on the domesticated front the omnipresent cows, dogs and cats.
But in a wildlife park, one would reasonably expect to see a rather more impressively exotic array of creatures. Regrettably for the Sage, two early morning jeep drives and jungle walks in south India yielded up the following meagre tally:
i) A giant squirrel, like the ones in the park opposite my flat on steroids
ii) One herd of deer, which looked suspiciously like the ones at the bottom of my mate's garden in Berkshire
iii) The legs and rear ends of some Indian bison, barely visible through the trees 100 yards away
iv) A variety of almost entirely uninteresting birds. Our jeep driver was clearly approaching desperation stakes when, having spotted absolutely nothing all morning, he stopped the vehicle to proudly point out a peacock.
Now to be fair to the Indian tourism industry, their flagship animal - the tiger - has sadly been hunted with such systematic cruelty over recent decades that the wild population in the country has fallen to below 1500. One guide told us that in over 10 years in one national park he had seen a tiger just once - hardly promising odds for our brief visit. But would it have been asking too much to see something that wouldn't be found ambling around the grounds of Chatsworth House or Richmond Park - a bear perhaps, or a leopard, or even a wild elephant??
Aaaah, the elephant! Is there any more noble beast? The African elephant, a larger and more aggressive character than his Indian cousin, generally roams the savannahs and jungles free from the yoke of man, but the Asian variety is often to be found employed in a variety of roles.
In days of yore, elephants formed a vital part of many a maharaja's war machine, as Alexander The Great would testify. But as they've been rather superceded militarily by modern innovations like tanks and aircraft, today's tusked talent generally engages in more peaceful pursuits, such as working in timber yards, or giving rides to giggling tourists.
The Sage experienced the latter in the beautiful state of Kerala,and thoroughly enjoyed his close encounter with Roopa, a female resident of Periyar National Park. Straddling her proved somewhat difficult with no seat or stirrups, but I soon got comfortable just above her legs and held on behind her ears to ensure I wasn't dismounted. All in all, it was a most pleasant ride, although Roopa had to stop half way through to take a slash of such awesome volume and power it could have extinguished the Great Fire of London. I declined the opportunity to feed and bathe her afterwards, as the Sage believes in the old adage of treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.
The pinnacle of any pachyderm's career however is to become a temple elephant. These revered animals can be found in Hindu places of worship all over India, with colourful markings on their faces and often clad in resplendent robes and glittering golden head dresses. Other than looking splendid, the main task of the temple elephant is to bless the faithful with its trunk, and consume offerings of food made to them by their numerous admirers.
Every summer in Tamil Nadu, around 200 temple elephants are given a month off and are taken to the state's Mudulumai National Park, where they spend a well-earned break eating, wallowing and chilling. One can only applaud a country so enlightened that non-humans are given holiday entitlement like any other employee, and it is indicative of the prestigious status of the temple elephant profession. The Sage himself would quite like to be a temple elephant.
After four weeks on the subcontinent, my Indian adventure was nearing an end. All that remained was a relaxing few days on the beach in the idyllic Keralan town of Varkala. Or so I thought.
The Sage lay sprawled on the sand without a care in the world, ipod in one hand, John Keay's excellent History Of India in the other, sun beating down from a cloudless blue sky. The flag indicating the current tidal level was at least 20 yards down the beach...
Suddenly without warning the Sage was soaked up to the waist and most of his belongings were floating out towards the Maldives, the result of an unexpected tidal surge. After frantically scampering around the beach to reclaim my flip flops, sunhat and other items, further investigation revealed that my camera, ipod and Blackberry were all rendered inoperable. The Sage cut a sorry figure as he clambered back up the cliff in his salt water and sand sodden shorts, fearing a month of Indian photographic memories (not to mention an exhaustively esoteric collection of eccentric music) had been lost for ever. Thankfully viewers of my Facebook page will see that my memory card survived intact, and after extensive drying out my Blackberry spluttered slowly back into life. The insurance claim for the other items remains 'in progress'...
So a somewhat frustrating end to a five week odyssey that the Sage will never forget. From the captivating madness of Delhi to the peaceful calm of Kerala's lush jungle backwaters, from the magnificent architecture of the Taj Mahal to the simple charms of rural village life in Madya Pradesh, India is a place like no other. Trying to make a country of 1.1 billion people with numerous religions and languages work as one nation in the modern world is a daunting task indeed, but the Sage for one hopes and believes that India can continue to go from strength to strength. I hope you have enjoyed my musings, and if you haven't been to India yet, I hope you're able to do so one day and experience it for yourself.
Goodbye for now.
The Sage
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