A Book with Soul - Hemanta Mishra's 'Close Encounters with the Unicorn Kind' and Other Specimens

Hot on the heels of the Paul Theroux trio of stories about India, I chanced upon The Soul of the Rhino. Where the seasoned travel writer fails to make India attractive as destination, Hemant Mishra's account about Rhino conservation most certainly makes me want to visit Nepal.

As a child, in the sixties, I read books about maneaters. Or rather accounts by their killers. They were very exciting reads, filled with pathetic natives and fearsome wild beasts. One of the great benefits of colonialism, these writings appeared to tell readers, was the extermination of dreadful wild animals. Until the White man came to Africa and India and ilk, we natives were being devoured routinely by various lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs and, perhaps, the odd hyena or two.  

Then, one fine day, people stopped favouring these wildlife stories. It is possible that we all woke up to the fact that many of these tales were born of a wild imagination. My father once told us that one such maneater-killing author reportedly found his muse in the bottle. Whatever the cause, such narratives fast became as endangered as the species their authors sought to slaughter. In a good cause, we admit, as it's certainly not feasible to have animals running around killing people. Whatever the final truth, it boils down to splitting hairs.

Now no longer in vogue nor in view, those books undoubtedly launched the existing tourist safari industry - some measly part of which purportedly helps endangered species survive. However, before they earned that honour, they first and foremost  triggered a merry masacre in the name of tourism. While Hindu and Mughal royalty, no doubt, enjoyed their hunts, it is the colonial cloud which, locust-like, shot the numbers into near extinction. Some species, indeed, lacked luck and now grace some museum as stuffed specimen. Then, with classic Christian guilt, the White man took to 'conservation'. 

For all my sarcasm, I have to admit that there are some brilliant characters among the motley bunch that comprise these activists. Much good work has been done and passionate proponents like Hemanta Mishra command respect. 

Skimming through GoodReads reviews, I found a kind of division of sentiments regarding The Soul of the Rhino. It appears hard for 'global' readers to shift the mantle of benefactor onto coloured shoulders. However dubious the credentials, a person of European descent is permitted to work with 'Natives' and other animals and publish accounts of encounters and it will be published and promoted. I may be biased in assuming that some cannot digest a brown or black or yellow skin in such a role. 

Hemanta Mishra emerges from The Soul of the Rhino resplendent.

Hemanta Mishra hugging an elephant in Chitwan National Park by Sushma Mishra - NeeshaRS, via Wikimedia Commons

The very first chapter, Close Encounters with the Unicorn Kind, offers a Discovery-channel like opening guaranteed to make you read on. Mishra breaks the ice with warm human and humane accounts of life in Nepal in his days. He sets the scene with entertaining anecdotes and, in a playful gesture, gives us a pair of mating rhinos. 

Cheating Yama, the God of Death follows with an introduction to the life and background of the author.

"Manakamana Temple Nepal" by Shiva Khanal via Commons - The author's mother had to visit the temple to pray for his birth

The third chapter, A Tale of the Terai, has many enchanting and entertaining tales about rhinos and other inhabitants of the region.

Rhino Roots comes next and explores all the rhino background you need for the purposes of the book.

Chapter Five, Clash of Cultures, is delightful, pitching a meticulous European against tribals with hilarious results. It is deliciously laced with priceless historical anecdotes. 

Classic Film 1970 Liquor Ad - The Soul of the Rhino is nicely laced with all the good things of life

Medicine or Myth? is a loaded chapter and has, perhaps, rubbed some the wrong way. But it is an eye opener and I will not take his insights with any pinch of salt. Find out how a princess used Taiwan to carry off some lucrative business based on rhino poaching.

Princess Dechen Wangmo Wangchuck (daughter of 3rd. King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck) and Princess Deki Yangzom Wangchuck (Daughter of 2nd. King Jigme Wangchuck)
- Duptho Rinzin Dorji/Shangri-La Bhutan Tours & Treks, via Wikimedia Commons

The seventh chapter, Learning from the West, is a charming account of the author's first visit to the West - to the UK, mostly. It rang so true given my own parent's stories of their time there in those years. The writing sparkles with welcome cheekiness and genuine goodhearted ingenuousness. 

Wilderness Blues, Chapter Eight, opens evocatively and musically with a local song. With always an elephant or two, it proceeds through hair raising accounts of encounters with sloth bears, irate humans, and a nice interlude with Nepali Star Beer, chilled in river water. There's more, of course, and all of it elucidates much and entertains hospitably.

Poverty, Rhinos, Tigers, and Tourists in Chitwan examines policies without being pedantic and offers insights into the growing tourist industry in the land. It stands out for an amusing story about the use of tigers in tourism. The chapter, like much of the book, is liberally garnished with tasty historical tidbits. 

George of the Jungle is an old rhino and the chapter is a delightful account of this hoary pachyderm. It has memorable passages which leave smiles in the memory.

From Killing Mothers to Snatch Babies on, a sombre note enters the book. What moves me is the author's ability to relate to tribesmen and other humbler beings on an equal footing with conservationists, royalty and other more privileged persons.

In Science and Shamanism, Mishra provides an unflinching tale of animal sacrifice and balances it with an as detailed look at the rituals of science in the practice of his work with rhinos.

Kidnapping Baby Rhinos for an American Zoo carries on with the sad note. However, I think that it is good for people to read about such things. The Disney mentality and the 'good works' of Discovery type channels do possible damage which it is good to antidote with a reading of true accounts. This bird's eye view might shake sensitive souls but it will be a healthy work-out for the conscience.

Taming Texas Rhinos, Popes, Kings, Queens, and the Rhino, Palace Intrigues and Rookie at the Royal Rhino Hunt all live upto the promise - learn, enjoy and realise that the greatest is one who savours the second. The author takes the reader on an enriching ride - it is rather the elephant's eye view for, frequently, the chapters bounce off the back of some pachyderm.

Rhino Versus Royalty, Prayers in the Dusk and Moving Rhinos are high tension - liberally laced with a characteristic humour and humility. It must surely have been an uphill task for the writer to have narrated the events and I would surely love to get a chance to personally interview him!

Winding up with A New Home for the Rhinos, Hemanta Mishra moves on from the tragic events of the previous chapters to set the tone for the future - not only for the rhinos in their new homes but also touching upon our own need for perspectives in the broader aspects of wildlife conservation.

Sadly, I have no idea how to watch the film mentioned below but I so wish I could!

The story reminded me of the German TV film entitled "Danger in the Rapti" by Max Rehbein, who's protagonist was Hemanta Mishra, a Nepalese wildlife expert, who likes to hear Beatles songs, in the role of a swashbuckling local Jungle Jim, in which he shot a man-eater and smoked a cigarette with the thankful village headman, for want of a peace-pipe. Hemanta Mishra used to work in the wildlife office in the early 1970s and ran the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation, and was awarded the J. Paul Getty Prize for Natural Protection. He worked for the UNO later in New York.

Live and Let Live: Wildlife Versus Humans in Beautiful Nepal  

Much of my joy in this book has also been because, like Hakan Nesser in The Inspector and Silence, the author intersperses the writing with 'refreshments'. And with rich cultural reference and content. 

A book that won't burn a hole in the pocket and one that will enchant any reader. Surely, there's someone out there who will be thrilled to be gifted a copy of this enchanting and engaging work. Just buy it and enter Hemanta's world - where shamans and conservationists mumble and bumble along. A world that does not judge, allowing historical tidbits to light the way to individual and diverse views of history.

The Elephanta Suite - As Fascinating as a Mammoth on the Mumbai Marina Beach

Three repulsive stories for the price of one. Perhaps I should have sheltered myself from Paul Theroux's fiction and continued to bask in his mostly splendid travel writings.

Opening with an American couple exploring extra-marital adventures and Ayurveda on a hilltop spa, Theroux follows up with another for the barf-bag. A wiley Jain lures an American pederast to Indian spirituality and makes off into the sunset of the Wild West with loot from the victim. Top it all off with a youngish American girl, all on her own, encountering some really sinister spiritual sisters and a greasy rapist. Bound to make many an American feel much holier than thou where thou is any Indian.  

Necessarily, a novel about a place is an account of the place. Mostly, such tales have drawn travelers to locales. Maugham's stories make the 'Orient' intriguing but inviting. Paul Theroux's triplet cannot, I fear, make India alluring to any - save, perhaps, those in search of the lurid. 

Alice, the heroine of the last of these three novellas, 'The Elephant God', a young American woman on a train, feels that Indian novels haven't adequately prepared her for the experience of India. 'Where were the big, fruitful families from these novels, where were the jokes, the love affairs, the lavish marriage ceremonies, the solemn pieties, the virtuous peasants, the environmentalists, the musicians, the magic, the plausible young men?'

A new passage to India

Though I'm not quite sure what these Indian novels mentioned are, the reader from India is bound to have a Slumdog Millionaire experience: 

OMG! If this is India, then where am I?! Who am I?!

Admittedly, our own media would have us believe that Paul Theroux's India, as depicted in The Elephanta Suite, is all the India there is. At least all the India that matters. It's a tempting offer, at times. Especially when every news item, national and international, waxes more yellow, one than the other, where it comes to India. 

After decades of polyphonic fiction from and about the subcontinent, it is strange to read such a complacently one-sided view, in which the locals are objects of lust, curiosity or ridicule but their inner lives remain closed.

 Heedlessly chewing with mouth open

I'm all for a nice dose of the nasties in a piece of writing. And novellas are rarely for the faint of heart. After all, how much mush can even the mushy at heart mush? 

However, in The Elephanta Suite, there is not the tang, twang and tingle of the good writing that characterises anything that struts about as a novella. Rather, this is a green at the gills stumbling bumbling bungling broth of blether, with an overall smell of decay.

Theroux is a keen observer of decay. Dwight relishes the "reeking lanes" where he trawls for trade and Audie bears witness to his own deterioration ("the jug ears, the thinning hair. He was no more than his breath"). There is an equally bleak view of India. Characters discover it to be full of inexplicable motives and desires. "India attracted you, fooled you, subverted you, then, if it did not succeed in destroying you with the unexpected, it left you so changed as to be unrecognisable."

As in his previous novel, Blinding Light, Theroux's passages of erotica jar with the intelligence of the rest of his writing. Perhaps it's a metaphor for Western capitalism screwing over the East, but an author fast approaching 70 lasciviously detailing the services of Dwight's teenage Mumbai prostitute makes for queasy reading and it's not just the girl who's left with a bad taste in the mouth. Also, sometimes the sex simply defies the internal logic set out by the narrative.

Theroux's tales of modern India are candid, perceptive and intelligent. But oh, those sex scenes...

The Elephanta Suite - Pitch Reel from Joseph Mathew on Vimeo.

Apparently, there was or is an attempt at a film. Mercifully, since there is no further news, it is possible that it will not materialise.

I'm not alone in feeling that this was a wild goose chase, seeking all the usual worth that a Theroux can provide only to find a wasteland: 

Except that in this collection of stories, the quest for such gems becomes a treasure hunt of sorts through a wasteland of false notes and insufferable smugness, crowned by an open distaste for all things Indian.

Theroux’s latest work of fiction is a triptych of independent tales with shared elements. India, as a backdrop, constitutes one; white Americans of diverse ages and temperaments who experience it first-hand, the other. Conjoining the unrelated narratives thematically is a series of elephant references and anecdotes that culminate in a blood-curdling climax, with a pachyderm becoming the dispenser of poetic justice.

Given that the stories are littered with contemporary allusions to call centres, outsourcing deals and emailed messages and include a sly take on Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid controversy, the slant of the first two, “Monkey Hill” and “The Gateway of India”, is disconcertingly anachronistic.

Triptych of independent tales

All in all, the book sounds and feels dated.

Alice boards a train in Bombay. She is en route to Bangalore with a friend who, at the last minute, ditches her for a new found amour, so Alice, alone in her coach with her co-passengers, spends her free time thinking how Indians have mummified an English where words like "utterance" and "miscreants", "thrice", "ample" and "jocundity" survive in daily usage. She meets a young man who adds to her vocabulary of Indian words with "ruminative", and Alice can't help thinking as she looks out of the train window that "it's so Merchant-Ivory".

This exoticisation of India is hardly unexpected, no foreign writer, less a travel writer, has remained free of the cliches, yet what is more annoying is that Alice's train somehow lands up in Gurgaon, the New Delhi suburb, before continuing on to Bangalore. Printer's devil? Subbing mistake? Or has the author of the hugely popular The Great Railway Bazaar lost his Bradshaw?

Paul Theroux's sleaze yatra

I would recommend this book to all India haters, Indian or not. It is a marvellous way to develop an allergy for the country before hand. Perhaps it will be handy for anxious parents whose offspring show signs of wanting to 'find themselves' - India is famous for the quest. 

Well, I wash my hands off the book and look forwards to reviewing another Nordic Noir novel, albeit one that is not as wonderful as the Hakan Nesser we discussed in a previous post.