The Room in the Elephant

Elephants are nearly universally admired, often loved, and frequently revered as animals with depths of feeling and understanding of which humans are only partially aware. They mourn their dead, sometimes reverently taking the tusks from an abandoned carcass to some distant and hidden elephant graveyard, a …

Both my maternal grandfather and my paternal grandfather fed me a formidable feast of nourishing stories when I was a child. I have written about my maternal grandfather, Hassanali Gwaderi, in the section on this website entitled The Khyber. I have written about my paternal grandfather, Gulamhussein …

Lakaji the Elephant Elder, was the oldest elephant that lived and strode along the dusty pathways and brittle woods and tall tree forests of the twelve villages the princely province of Nawanagar, overlooking the Gulf of Kutch, north of the Arabian Sea, in the Indian …

The Bengali Brahmin General Manager of the Colonial Club, Mr. Bhattacharya, loved rules and regulations. He could at the same time be meticulous and methodical, obsessive and obnoxious, calculating and condescending, elitist and egotistical, snooty and snobby, fastidious and fussy. Mr. Bhattacharya, in the tradition …

It was inevitable that young Kumar, the adoring former student of his beloved teacher, Mr. Chatterjee would, one day, storm into Mr. Bhattacharya’s General Manager office at the Colonial Club. Both Mr. Bhattacharya and Gopal knew it would happen one day, and this happened to …

It was a hot day along the soulless and scrappy backstreets of Rawalpindi Road, where scoundrels befriended swindlers and rogues befriended rascals. Where the bahar vala (the outliers) drank beora (homebrewed alcohol) all throughout the night while sitting on the sidewalk or littering the streets, …

There were once three brothers and their names were Badrudin, Sadrudin and Kamrudin. They were the sons of a noble soldier who had fought bravely in the Battle of Ali Masjid. In the seedy and secretive underworld of spies and smugglers, of military mercenaries, of …

As Kumar and Badrudin sat in the crowded compartment of the India Railway train, Kumar asked Bardrudin how he had arrived at this epiphany, which had inspired him to build this school for boys. Badrudin explained to Kumar that when we had left Mr. Warnakulasuriya’s …

Divide and rule was the staple stratagem of the British Raj in India. Pitting tribal, religious and socio-economic sectors of society against each other, instead of allowing them to seek ways to work and live together in harmony, was the devious skill of the colonial …

When Ranjit the Elder, the Maharaja of Nawanagar grew old, he passed on his legacy to his eldest son Prakash and pronounced Prakash the Prince and ruler of Nawanagar. Prince Prakash then took over the maharaja’s palace in Nawanagar and the widowed Ranjit moved permanently …

These days, Ranjit the Elder confined himself to the sanctuary of his spacious and opulent bedroom at the summer palace in Shimla. He rarely ventured out of his bedroom as he found it too painful to witness how the rest of his Shimla palace was …

Ranjit the Elder’s soul was experiencing a severe drought, and his parched soul lamented and longed for refreshment. His parched soul needed to be quenched of his desperate thirst for goodness. Ranjit the Elder gazed momentarily at his servant Govinder and thought to himself how, …

After Badrudin and Mr. Warnakulasuriya had left Mr. Warnakulasuriya’s tailor shop on Rawalpindi Road, to go to the Colonial Club to meet with Mr. Chatterjee about building a school in the Khyber, the Chaiwalla and the Chaiwalla’s ten-year old son, who served as an apprentice …

The five of them, the Maharaja Ranjit the Elder, his servant Govinder, the young man from Nawanagar who was going to journey all the way to Africa, the Chaiwalla and his ten-year old son, all threw their empty mud cups toward a grassy area where …

…“Chai! Chai!” “Ah! Chaiwalla is coming. Now we can have our morning tea.” “I didn’t hear anything…” “…they’ll serve the British sahibs in first class before they get to third class…” “Chai! Chai!…” “See! I told you Chaiwalla is coming!” “Papu, don’t wake up your …

On the edge of the Sacred Forest, on Day Four of the Great Trek of young Raj and his beloved friend, Lakaji the Elephant Elder, these two friends, were now joined by the Chaiwalla, the Chaiwalla’s son, Maharaja Ranjit the Elder and his servant Govinder. …

Thus it was, that in the years and decades to come, the renaissance and rebirth of the province of Nawanagar was restored bountifully. As the fortunes from the ivory hoards of the Sacred Forest were sold for money, as this money filled the treasury, there was …