E Is For Elephant

The Day A Toddler Made A Trunk Call

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON

She was about three years old at the time. Maybe four years old, tops. The apple of her grandfather's eye, she was a fearless, fesity girl with limpid brown eyes. The eyes would take on a sparkle when she was near an animal, any animal.

She loved the cow. She loved the calf. She wanted to adopt every dog she saw. She enjoyed nothing better than getting her ayah, or carer, to take a crafty diversion on their daily walk so that she could spend time with a donkey in the vicinity. So when - surprise, surprise - an elephant handler turned up with (yes, you guessed it) a full-grown elephant, she thought all her Christmases had come at once.

An elephant? In the city? Look, this was India, a wonderful country where anything was possible. The little girl practically ran away from her ayah's grasp when the elephant hove into sight.The animal's handler spotted her and recognised her spirit. He asked her if she wanted to come for a ride.

She nodded so hard her head almost fell off at its hinges. Meanwhile, her ayah was aghast. An elephant ride? NEVER. No negotiation. Not going to happen.

But I said she was a feisty little girl, remember? She was in awe of no one; she was afraid of nothing. She was determined to get on the elephant. The ayah fled idoors to report this unseemly ambition to the little girl's mother. After all, who in their right minds would send a three-year-old off with a strange man and an elephant?

The three-year-old waited, cannily, until the ayah had disappeared from sight. Then she accepted the offer of the ride and elephant, handler, and delighted tot began to lumber down busy Diamond Harbour Road.

Bear in mind the ayah didn't know the little girl, an incandescent smile on her face, was aboard the pachyderm. She told the child's mother what was unfolding and the child's mother, shocked beyond belief, told the ayah that the child was to be strictly forbidden from getting aboard the elephant.

The child's grandfather just chuckled because that was exactly the adventurous spirit he recognised in the child and loved her for it. He went and got his camera and took a historic photograph of the big beast in the distance. The little girl had been playing dress-ups and she was clad in a miniature orange sari - the splash of orange aboard the elephant was unmistakable.

The servants gathered in awe. The family members alternated between spluttering with laughter at the little girl's audacity and shaking their heads at her, well, her audacity. The grandfather, a lateral thinker, pointed out that no kidnapping could possibly be intended - after all, where would the handler hide an elephant?

I spoke to the little girl this week. She is now a chemical engineer and she laughed at the recollections of that memorable day. She says she felt no fear. She says she felt no misgivings about her decision to get on the elephant. She even remembers the handler stopping to give the elephant some water. But she does not have the photograph of the bold deed. I think it might be with her father now, a tremendous souvenir of The Day The Elephant Came.

You see, the little girl is one of my beloved nieces. Her grandfather was my father. And it doesn't surprise me that she has some strong recollections of the day. Us McMahons, we all have memories like an elephant.

Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON