Stories matter: The Elephant Whisperer

An armchair safari to a place where humans and elephants are engaged in a deadly conflict over resources — and the one man who can communicate with both sides.


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Much of the music in this episode is from the Free Music Archive by:

• Bruce Miller (https://www.freemusicarchive.org/music/Broos) CC BY-NC-ND
• Vinod Prasanna (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Vinod_Prasanna__Okey_Szoke__Pompey) CC BY NC
• Siddhartha Corsus (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Siddhartha) CC BY
• Podington Bear (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Podington_Bear) CC BY NC

Theme music: Fragilistic by Ketsa; licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

Transcript

Kelley Lynch: 0:07

This year, our neighborhood has had a plague of Deer. They're brazen. Running around the neighborhood in gangs, stripping our trees of leaves and eating our bushes to the quick. They are particularly fond of produce in our gardens. There's been a war of fencing that has recently claimed our patio furniture, which is now stacked into the chicken wire in a bid to keep them out. There have also been groundhogs. We're not sure how many, but one is twice the size of our cat and so fat that it actually waddles. And one Snowy day, this winter, I saw my first fox standing just meters from the back door on my snow covered patio. Cindy is contemplating turning her backyard into a petting zoo. Generations of deer families have decided it's the safest place in the neighborhood to give birth and raise their young. And they come back to visit every so often. So now she calls them her pets. But she's not so partial to all of her animal visitors. She's currently in an ongoing battle with a raccoon who insists on prying off the lid of every trash can she buys no matter how many bricks and bungee cords she uses to secure it. As you're listening to all of this, you might think we live in a rural area, but no we live in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. My daughter, a plant biologist reminds me that as there are more of us, there's less room for them. But she also reminds me that ultimately there is no distinction between"us" and"them"."It's not a matter of man versus nature," she says."That might work in literature, but in the real world, that story has been incredibly toxic to us and to all of the life that is here with us on this planet. Ultimately there's only one side. We are all on team nature." The other night, she and a number of friends went out after dark to save salamanders from the wheels of passing cars, by picking them up and ferrying them across Vermont roads so that they can get to their spawning grounds on the other side. She texted a picture of a little spotted amphibian with bulging eyes and clown lips being ferried across the road in her hand."But this isn't some one-off thing," she says."It's happening all around us. We are destroying and fragmenting the habitats of all kinds of species. And they're not rearing up with fangs and claws to stop us. They're not shouting at us or breaking down our doors. It's easy for us to ignore what's happening when they go out without a sound squashed under the wheels of a passing car." Her story reminds me of another story. A story about what happens when a species does fight back— in this case, knocking down doors and even houses. This is the story of a journey I took into a forest in Bangladesh with a man who has the unique ability to communicate with those whose voices most humans can't understand. Welcome. I'm Kelly Lynch, and this is A New Normal, a podcast that reimagines a future that starts with each one of us. This week on the podcast, we're doing something a little bit different. I invite you to sit back, relax, kick off your shoes and join me on an armchair Safari in Bangladesh.

Speaker: 4:12

Chapter 1.

Kelley Lynch: 4:16

Leaning in over the single candle in the black room. Joseph whispers, listen to this: 15 days ago, a man from a village, just down the road, went to the forest to cut wood, and while he was cutting, he heard—Joseph stops and looks over one shoulder than the other and turns back lowering his voice—Mo coming. Wh o's M o? I ask. My translator, Tapon Roy, leans over and whispers directly into my ear. It means elephant, he says. In this part of Bangladesh, we never call them by name. It's like calling your elders by name it's disrespectful and it makes them angry. So we say Mo. I t means uncle. But I don't understand why we have to whisper. I say. Joseph explains: Here we are always careful about what we say because Mo knows everything. Even if we say something about him here, inside the house, he can hear us from deep inside the forest. Joseph continues. So this man, his name is Fazar Ali, heard Mo coming. And he ran away leaving a pile of wood behind in the forest. Now he had already made one mistake. He was cutting down the forest and Mo doesn't like it when people do that. And then when he was running away, he made another mistake. He shouted and cursed at Mo and even called him by name. And Fazar Ali knew only too well what happens when you offend Mo's polite ears. You see, a few weeks earlier, there was another woodcutter from the same village who came upon Mo in the forest. He cursed him and then threw a piece of bamboo that hit Mo in the head. The man knew he'd done a bad thing, but his house was more than four kilometers from the forest. So he ran home and forgot all about it. That night, the man was inside the house, eating dinner when there was a knock at the door. He opened it and looked out there was nobody there. Then he felt something slide around his waist. Mo, the same Mo from the forest, grabbed that man and pulled him out of the house and threw him to the ground and stood on his head until it went pop! Being from the same village. Fazer Ali knew all of this. So having cursed Mo in the forest that day, he wasn't taking any chances that night. He went and slept at another house in the village in case Mo came knocking. But Mo is clever. That night he did come looking for Fazar Ali. The first thing he did was to smash a hole in the wall of Fazar Ali's house. And when he didn't find him there, he went from one house to another looking for the house where Fazar Ali was sleeping. And when he found him, he butted down the mud wall of that veranda and pulled Fazar Ali and only Fazar Ali out from where he was sleeping amongst six other men. Then he threw him on the ground and squashed him right there in the courtyard. I'm amazed and more than a little bit scared because we've come to Malumghat, a little town, 35 kilometers North of Cox's bazar to look for wild elephants. The three of us sit in silence for a moment. And then Joseph, who is Tapon's older brother, says exactly what I'm thinking. If it was me, I wouldn't go anywhere near the forest. Turning to look directly at Tapon. He says, don't you remember when we used to cut firewood in the forest when we were kids? Don't you remember how scared we were of Mo? Apparently Tapon did remember. I can feel him squirming in the seat next to me. But strangely doing a story about the elephants here had been his idea. I'd rejected it of course. I mean, anyone who has spent any time at all in Bangladesh, and at this point I'd lived there more than seven years, knows that elephants are the stuff of Kipling's Bengal, not this one. Today, more than 125 years after the publication of The Jungle Book, there is precious little jungle left in modern day Bengal, whether on the Indian side of the border or here on the Bangladeshi side. Every square millimeter is occupied by people. Clearly there was no room for elephants. But Tapon insists and I look into it. I call a friend who works at the world conservation union, IUCN in Dhaka. Mohsin Choudhury is a researcher who has spent a lot of time in Bangladesh's Sundarbans, which is the largest mangrove forest in the world. His time there was spent studying tigers, and as it happens, he's also just finished. Bangladesh's first official elephant census. You're right, he tells me. Today, we have only a fraction of the number of elephants that used to be here. IUCN lists them as critically endangered and Bangladesh's elephants are among the most threatened in all of Asia, but they're still here. Officially we put the number at around 180 with about a hundred Indian visitors that come and go. I ask if it's possible to find them. It is, he says, cautiously, if you know where to look, but elephants are dangerous animals. They kill many people every year. If you wanted to find them, you would have to go with an experienced guide. Someone who knows elephants and knows the forest. You're not planning to go looking for elephants, are you? No, of course not. I say, but Tapon keeps pushing. I promise you this will be the greatest story you ever write, he tells me over and over again. And so here we are. Sitting here in the dark, I can feel it. Now that we're here and now that this is real, he's reconsidering. Joseph leans back in his chair and is swallowed by the darkness. But if you decide, you still want to go looking for Mo, he says, there's only one person I can think of who could help you. A man called Bodi Alam faqir. A faqir?Doesn't that mean he's some sort of holy man I ask? Yes, Joseph says, people say he has special powers, God-gifted powers that allow him to talk to Mo and Mo listens. Around here, people hire him to sit and guard their rice fields at night. They say he has no fear. He sits in the field, in the dark. And when Mo comes to eat the rice, he commands them to leave. And do they actually leave? I ask. They do, he says. But people also say that these days he doesn't even have to sit in their fields. Mo knows his name. So now whenever Mo comes into their fields, people just call out, Oooo-eeee, Bodi Alam Faqir is coming. And Mo goes away. They say that just his name is enough to protect you. The power returns, bathing the room in the warm glow of the naked 60 watt bulb that dangles from the ceiling, Joseph stands and stretches. Anyway, like I said, if I was thinking about going to the forest to look for Mo, I would find Bodi Alam Faqir and see if he would take me. If nothing else, he should know where to find them. Even if the stories about his powers aren't true.

Speaker: 13:30

Chapter 2.

Kelley Lynch: 13:36

Early, the next morning, Tapon and I knock on the front door of the faqir's mud house. He's not at home, but his 12-year-old son offers to show us the way to the family's farm, where the faqir spends most of his nights. We follow the boy across the highway and into the patchy forest on the other side. Ten minutes later, we're standing outside the jumble of bamboo mud, plastic, sheeting, and corrugated iron that Is the faqir's farmhouse. The boy disappears inside to tell his father he has visitors and then comes back and stands nearby kicking at the dirt while we wait for his father to emerge. I look around, there's a large pond in front of the shack, to the west wide brown terraces bristle with the stubble of recently harvested rice. It's a lot of land compared to most farmers in Bangladesh. The faqir has done well for himself. A few minutes later, we hear snoring coming from the farmhouse. His son goes back inside and reappears—followed by this great bear of a man. Never mind wild elephants, the faqir looks half wild himself—from the grey cotton candy beard of a holy man to the steely ringlets that fall to his shoulders and the bristling fur of his eyebrows. And the size of him—by Bangladeshi standards, where at five foot seven, I'm considered tall, this man is a giant—at least six foot three and solid. And when he speaks, it's in a language, I don't recognize. Fortunately, Tapon does. The two of them prattle on in Chittagonian, a dialect that only rarely seems to resemble Bangla, until a gentle elbow reminds Tapon that he's here because he's supposed to be translating into English for me. What was all of that about? I ask. Tapon explains that the faqir apologized for making us wait so long, but he'd had a long night. Not long after he went to sleep. He was woken by gunfire in the forest. As a forest guard or"villager", the faqir is always on call with the Forest Department, should they happen to need him. So when he heard the shots, he grabbed his gun and ran toward the forest where he found officials from the Forest Department, exchanging fire with six tree thieves. In the end, all but one of the thieves escaped. By the time the officials left to take the thief to the police station, it was almost 2:00 AM. Bodi Alam Faqir went back to his farmhouse and had just gone to sleep again when the elephants arrived. What were they doing? I ask. They were just walking around outside the house—look, Tapon says pointing to the massive circular depressions I hadn't noticed in the ground all around us. They stood here just outside the door. He says he got up to see what they wanted. And when he came to the door, they raised their trunks twice to salute him. They told him they were hungry. He said they were so thin that he felt sad to see them. He told them he didn't have anything for them here. He's already harvested his rice. But he invited them to go to his house and eat some of the paddy over there. Then they saluted him again and went away. Did they go to his house? I ask. Turning to the faqir's son Tapon translates my question. His son nods. How much did they eat? Tapon asks. Almost one bigha, he says. Tapon and I look at the faqir. He nods, but his face registers no reaction to the news. So much! Tapon says, as surprised as I am that the faqir doesn't seem to mind. For most farmers in Bangladesh, losing a third of an acre of rice would spell complete ruin. Bodi Alam Faqir shrugs. How can I eat before them? He says. The animals have first priority. Allah will bless us. And the animals will bless my children so that they too may eat. Here the faqir stops and looks at us expectantly. That's when I realize that Tapon, as so often happens, must've forgotten to explain why we're here. He launches into an explanation, and when he falls silent, the faqir turns to look at me. Unlike most Bengali men, he looks right into my eyes. His gaze is so intense, so penetrating that I begin to wonder what it is that Tapon said. And then it occurs to me that maybe because he's a holy man, he can somehow see right through m e. And maybe he doesn't like what he sees. But I hold his gaze because I have questions of my own. Does this man really have some sort of special power over the elephants? Like Joseph said. Did elephants really come here last night? And did he really talk with them? I searched his eyes for the answers. And I like what I see. The faqir has innocent eyes, truthful eyes. And then he smiles—not a nervous flicker or one of those tight lipped, English smiles, but a big sincere smile that shows off every single one of his beetle nut stained teeth. And I smile back. I know it sounds ridiculous to say that one long look and a smile can change everything. But what is trust—and faith for that matter—if not a feeling, an instinct. And so in that moment, a seed of faith was planted. I trusted this man. With him at my side, I would feel safe even in a forest full of wild elephants. The faqir suggests that we go to Himchari, a forest village in the Chittagong Hill Tracts where, several months before, elephants flattened an entire village. He says, we're certain to find some there. We make a date for six, the following morning. As we are about to leave, I tell Tapon that I've noticed that the faqir doesn't say Mo like everybody else we've met. He calls the elephants by name—hati. When Tapon asks him about it, Bodi Alam faqir laughs, Why would I call them Mo? He says. That's just a lot of superstitious nonsense. As we set off, back down the foot path toward the highway, I turn back to look at the faqir. As he disappears from view, I wave. He smiles, and everything is right with the world. Chapter 3. Back in town, I can't wait to call Mohsin to tell him the good news. We found someone to take us looking for elephants, I tell him from a mobile phone center on the side of the highway. And the best thing is, he's a holy man. Wait a minute, Mohsin, says, did you say a Holy man? Yeah, isn't that great? I say. They say that this guy can actually talk to the elephants. Oh no, no, no, he says you cannot go looking for elephants, especially with a holy man. But why not? I ask. Listen, in the Sundarbans there are tons of stories about holy men who have power over tigers. Tigers, elephants...these are powerful animals. People are afraid just to hear their names. So whenever they hear that there's a holy man who can protect them from these animals, the news travels fast. But I've met these holy men, and it's almost always the same story. And it never has a happy ending. More often than not they turn up dead, killed by a tiger. Hello? He says, are you still there? Yeah, I'm here. It's just that...Well, this guy seems different. Wait a minute, he says. Don't tell me you actually believe in this guy. This is very important, he says. You must listen to me. Educated people do not go around believing this kind of nonsense. It may be that the elephants recognize your faqir, but elephants are very dangerous animals. Very. You should not go out looking for elephants, and you definitely should not put your faith in the powers of this faqir. Have you already made a plan? Yeah, I say. We made a plan for tomorrow morning. It's crazy. You really shouldn't do this, but if you insist, I have just one piece of advice: wear brown clothes, it could save your life. brown clothes? I say. And you think I'm crazy putting my faith in a Holy man? Look, he says, I know this sounds stupid and there's nothing remotely scientific about it. But we do know that the forest department people wear brown clothes and the elephants don't attack them. At least not usually. What do you mean not usually? I ask. There was one attack a couple of years ago when elephants did kill a man from the forest department, he says. But that was the first time in like 30 years. And we think it was probably an accident. Like I said, I have no idea why it seems to work, but I'll tell you this, it can't hurt. I lay awake all night, riding a roller coaster of indecision. By morning, I've decided Mohsin is right. Educated people don't go around believing in the powers of Holy men where dangerous animals are concerned. And sensible people, especially if they are the mother of two young children, don't go risking their lives for a story. What was I thinking? All of that crap about the way he looked at me, his smile. I decide we'll go to the faqir's house, but only to tell him we have to cancel. I pull on the clothes that I set out the night before--jeans and a Brown shirt--and pad down the hallway to wake Tapon and our driver Francis. Tapon, who has trouble dragging himself out of bed at the best of times, swings open the door on the first knock. When I tell him what I've been thinking and that I've decided I don't want to go with the faqir, he breathes a sigh of relief. He's been up all night thinking the same thing. The faqir isn't home when our Land Rover roars into the courtyard just after 6:00 AM. While we wait for him to arrive, Tapon recounts all of the elephant horror stories he knows in an attempt to bolster my notoriously feeble resolve. Of course, there will be no mention of the truth. We will simply say that we have other work to do, apologize for the inconvenience and leave. But the problem with faith is that it has a way of surfacing when you least expect it, causing you to do the most irrational things. When the faqir strides into the compound 25 minutes later, he says, good morning as he passes us and disappears into the house. He emerges a few minutes later wearing brown trousers, a lilac shirt and a yellow prayer cap. He's carrying prayer beads in one hand and an ancient single barrel shotgun in the other. I stand as he approaches prepared to tell him the trip is off. He stops looks down at me—and smiles. And in that simple gesture, everything that constitutes my better judgment is submerged in a flood of faith that rages across the nights, worried gullies. I smile back. I laugh. I'm giddy to discover that I do have faith in him. I really do. I wasn't imagining it. Besides, I tell myself if it turns out the faqir doesn't really have any truck with the Elephants, there's always the gun. He turns and makes his way to the car and I follow him. Come on, I call out to Tapon, let's go. Tapon looks at me, eyes round. Oh, come on. I say, waving his concerns away like so many flies. What's the worst that can happen?

Speaker: 27:59

Chapter Four.

Kelley Lynch: 28:01

This much is certain: when embarking on a course of potential danger, it never hurts to have heaven on your side. So when the faqir says, he wants to stop at a Mazzar, which is the shrine of a Muslim Saint to say a prayer. Before we go to the forest, I'm all for it. Turning off the highway. We travel a few minutes along a dirt road before pulling up outside a small white building set amidst low hills and vast paddy fields that stretch away to the horizon. Bodhi Alam Faqir gets out of the car, stands in front of the building with his head bowed, then slipping out of his shoes. He ducks into the shrine. A few minutes later, he emerges, steps back into his shoes and climbs into the car. As we trundle off down the road in the direction of Himchari, Bodi Alam Faqir tells us the story of the Mazar and of Saghir Shah, the long dead Saint within, whose blessings changed his life. Originally from the middle East. Saghir Shaw was one of the 360 disciples who came to this part of the world with Bangladesh's most famous Sufi Saint, Shah Jalal, in the early 14th century. The story goes that after helping Shah Jalal rid Sylhet of the despotic Hindu King Goral Govinda, Sogeer Shah along with the rest of Shah Jalal's followers, set off to bring the light of Islam to other parts of this land. He eventually settled here near present day Mahlumgat in what was then a deep dark forest before he came. This forest was full of evils and demons and many wild animals. So as the folk here, the first thing, Sogheer Shah did was give the call to prayer. And when they heard that sound, the evils and demons left the forest and the animals came before Sogheer Shah and saluted him, the fakir continues. Then he prayed to Allah that people could come and live here, that they could clear the forest and plant rice. The Saint's grave was officially recognized in the 1960s and a small building was erected over it. Bodhi Alam, a poor farmer who lived nearby was asked to be its caretaker. After I started to serve him, poverty never touched me, says the faqir. Whatever I asked, whatever blessings I needed, I received. But the biggest change happened one night, several years later, when Bodhi Alam was on a small bus with a number of other people, driving through a patch of dense forest, Suddenly twenty-five or 30 elephants came out of the forest and onto the road, he says. We couldn't get out of the bus and move them ourselves. It was too dangerous. And at that time there were also tigers and bears in the forest. From the back of the bus, I prayed to Sogir Shah"Baba, please move these Elephants from the road so that we can pass." As I spoke those words, a man with long hair and a turban emerged from the forest. With his bare hands, he pushed the elephants off the road and back into the field forest. Come on. He told them move. When the road was clear, the man vanished back into the forest, walking in the direction of the Missouri since that time. Sogheershah has been my spiritual teacher and my protector. Whenever I pray to him, he helps me. And when I'm in danger, he appears before me. And when I talk to the elephant's, they listen. More than an hour later, we pull into a little market town on the edge of the Chittagong hill tracks. We leave the car with the driver and after crossing a small river in a little wooden boat, set off on the foot path toward the village of Himchari. The faqire walks in front shotgun, resting on his shoulder, looking more like a great Hunter than a Holy man. We pass between low forested Hills and cross wide Paddy fields that bath the flat lowlands in a sea of fluorescent green. As we go, we travel through one collection of mud huts after another. The women cover their faces with the ends of their saris and shrink back into the doorways, but the children run to greet us and the men leave their work in the fields to see who's come. Bangladeshis have vast reserves of curiosity. Who are you? Where are you from? What are you doing? Where are you going? Soon word travels ahead of our small party that Bodi Alam Faqir, whose reputation seems to extend even to these parts has come looking for elephants. Our number grows as men from one village after another fall in line behind the faqir and his bobbing gun along the way people give us news of the elephants. They're never far away. People to show us where they were the night before, the week before a few months before. The evidence and the stories are always the same broken houses, trampled rice. We learned that in recent times, this area has been suffering a plague of elephants w here only a few years ago, these people had never even seen an elephant. T here's now panic and even death almost every night as the elephants with clockwork, precision, exit the forest under cover of darkness and like a vicious g uerrilla force, execute, search and destroy missions. They're looking for rice in the fields and when they don't find it there, they go to people's homes. They've been known to carry away entire bags of rice, and sometimes even cooked rice still in the pot, we used to fight back. One woman tells us. We would wave fire torches at them and they would run away, but we don't do that anymore. It just makes them crazy. So what do you do now? Tapon asks. Now, we just sit in the dark panicked with fear and praying. They don't find us because if they do, they'll try to kill us. While people are talking to us. I look over at the faqir, expecting him to be interested in what these people are telling us, but he seems bored by all of the stories with every stop, he just stands there, leaning on the barrel of his appended gun, his eyes trained on the fores

Seven: 35:07

[inaudible]

Kelley Lynch: 35:08

As we walk deeper into the Hills, there are fewer villages. There's more forest and only the occasional patch of rice. Tiny platforms known as tongs are more high in the massive trees floating overhead. The men who sleep in them are the elephant early warning system in a world without electricity, where darkness and fear rule the night. The sun is high in the sky by the time the remains of Himchari village appear on the horizon. Broken mud walls, lion heaps littered with the evidence of people's hasty retreat. A single shoe, a frayed bamboo mat, a small glass bottle. We stepped through a flimsy bamboo gate at the first house that shows any sign of life. Ahmed, a thin man in his late forties with a graying beard squats inside the skeleton of a new house, shaping thick bamboo poles while his son nails them together, overhead. Like everyone else we've talked to on the way[inaudible], who has lived in Himchari for 35 years, tells us the trouble with Mo only started a few years ago. Where previously he'd seen the odd elephant now and then, suddenly they were coming almost every night and they were angry. They damaged houses and stole rice. A few months ago, the situation went from bad to worse, culminating in a series of nighttime raids in which the elephants demolished more than 40 houses, almost the entire village in the course of a few nights. It was almost midnight when they came to our house, he says one big male and one female. We had just harvested our rice and were sleeping. When we heard this boom and one wall of our house fell over. We ran outside, shouting and waving our hands, trying to scare them away, but they wouldn't go. They were going crazy. Breaking the grain store, chasing us, destroying our house. We ran to climb the ladder up to the tong. I helped everybody else get up. First. He says, and then I started to climb. They were all shouting at me. Hurry up, hurry up. Mo's coming. I climbed a few rungs, but I was in such a rush. I missed a step. I slipped and fell to the ground. Mojofar's younger brother, Shamsir, takes up the story. We were shouting at him from the tong, but he didn't get up. I climbed down and threw him over my shoulder and got back up here before Moe could get to us. We were all safe, but we were still crying because while we stood there watching, Moe destroyed everything we own. The next morning, we took my brother to the doctor. He had four broken ribs that have cost us so much in medical bills. These days Mo is causing us so much suffering. But you're still here Tapon says, why haven't you left? Like everybody else? Where would we go? Shamsir says. The government gave us this land. We don't have any other place to go or to live or to grow our food. I look over at the faqir.. Once again, searching his face for some response, an offer of protection, perhaps, or some strategy for dealing with the elephants. If he was the sort of opportunistic Holy man most seen, had talked about, it seemed he should be trying to somehow capitalize on their loss and fear, but he's no different than he's been at all of the other villages along the way.- Impassive apparently uninterested his eyes trained solely on the forested Hills. As if he's trying to send something about the elephants that live. Mojofar and his son turned back to their work. Shemsir apologizes for his brother's apparent rudeness. There isn't much time left for them to work today. He says he explains that Mojofar and his family are only here during the day. They work here, cook here and eat here. But before dusk, they have to be three kilometers away and young Chubb Bazaar, where they pass their nights, sleeping on the floor of Mojofar's in-law's house. When the kitchen he's working on is finished, Mojofar will build a tree house so his family can move back here permanently. Then they'll live here like we do, Shamsir says. On the ground by day and in the trees by night. You sleep in the tong every night? Tapon asks. Always Shamsir says, we finish our dinner before dusk and get up into the tree before Mo comes. Mo comes every night? Almost. Last night, we had a group of nine. They ate some of our rice, but then they went to the field and trampled, even more of it. He takes us over to see the deep paths, their hefty legs mowed through the paddy. He shrugs, what can we do now? It's ruined. I asked the brothers why they think this is happening. Only Allah knows that Mojofar says looking up from his work, but Shamsir has obviously given the matter some serious thought. Before, there was more forest here and fewer people. Now people are cutting down the forest, making houses and farms. There's not much food for the elephants. So they're hungry and their hunger makes them crazy. Mojofar disagrees. Look, he says to his brother, we have banana trees, but they haven't touched those. And sometimes they don't even want rice. Sometimes I think they aren't looking for food, but for people to kill, I'll tell you why this is happening. It's the voice of Bodi Alam Faqir. Everyone turns to look at him. Several years ago at the border with Burma, poachers killed 150 or 200 elephants and took their tusks. The elephants were scared. That's why they came over here. And then two years ago, people killed a couple of elephants right here behind this village. Elephants are intelligent animals. They understand everything. They're hungry. That's true. They're mad at people for cutting down their forest. That's true. But most of all, they're looking for revenge. It's early afternoon when we leave Himchari. A handful of Mojofar's and Shamsir's neighbors have decided to join us lending the elephant party, a decidedly menacing air. I can't understand why the faqir hasn't turned them away for armed with sticks, axes, and machetes. They appear to be hoping for a chance at some revenge of their own. We wind our way along the narrow pathways between the paddy fields toward the jungle clad Hills, where Mojofar and Shamsa told us the elephants live during the day. Bodi Alam Faqir strides out and takes the lead top on a nice soon fall, far to the rear. As the flatland narrows into low terraced fields between the densely forested Hills, the Patty disappear. One of the young men from Himchari tells us we used to grow rice here, but not anymore. It's not worth it. The land is good, but this is the elephant's road. Every night they come through here on their way to the villages. I had noticed the flatten bamboo fences on the dikes, but now I understood them. These people had tried to stop the elephants and failed. It was another front in the battle that most seen and his fellow researchers call the human elephant conflict. And which I suppose these people would call a war. It's one the elephant seem to be winning, for now. The faqir stops in one of the barren fields. When we catch up the men in the party are clamoring around him talking heatedly. I asked Tapon what they're saying. They're telling the faqir he has to be ready to shoot onsite. The elephants that live in this forest are crazy bloodthirsty monsters. They have the stories to back it up. One man tells the faqir, how Mo killed a wood cutter and then ripped his body into three pieces. Another tells him how Mo killed two boys who were looking after their family's cattle. Still another tells him how Moe killed a mother and a baby hiding in a rice field after he heard the baby crying. Bodi Alam faqir appears unmoved. He pulls a little wad of beetle nut from his pocket and pops it into his mouth. He spits then reaches into his breast pocket from which he produces the sum total of his ammo- two cartridges. Without a word, he loads the gun, shoulders it and sets off. Tapon and I run alongside and manage to keep up with him just long enough to ask if this means that he is perhaps just a little bit scared. As the giant man strides on, he turns and smiles down at us. This time it is a smile that simultaneously pities and seeks to reassure those of us of lesser faith. One hand still props up the butt of his shotgun, but as he raises the other toward the deep surillian sky, he says, what is there to worry about? There's the owner. Does he not take care of us all? I envy him his faith and his gun because with news of blood thirsty elephants, my own faith is in crisis. Again, a crisis that deepens as the faqir strides ahead, leaving Tapon and I to quickly reclaim our places at the distant rear of the elephant party. Mohsin's words, which I've managed to relegate to a dark corner of my mind, now reverberate inside my skull."Educated people do not go around believing in the power of Holy men over wild animals. It never has a happy ending. Those same Holy men later turn up dead." As we near the Hills, the evidence of the elephants is everywhere. Broken fences, an uprooted tree and massive circular depressions alongside my own insignificant marks in the shoe, sucking ankle, deep mud. The young man in front of me turns he points to where the elephants have snapped off a few small trees and scratch their bellies on the wall of a shallow canal. I realized that until this very moment, despite all we've seen and heard the elephants have been far enough away, that I've thought of them as the misunderstood and hard done by versions of the so-called gentle giants I've only ever seen in a zoo. They've been abstract enough that I have regarded them with a mix of romanticism and pity of the kind one might reserve for a species that we have edged towards the brink of extinction. Until this moment, my sympathies have been with the elephants who are the ultimate underdog in this conflict, but now we've left the human centered world and entering the dark forest. We are trespassing in their world. It's a world where I am small insignificant, and perhaps for the first time in my life, I'm reminded that I am just another animal made of flesh and blood for the first time, the elephants seem real and dangerous and I'm scared. I don't want to go on. But the only thing that would be worse would be to be here alone. For the first time I understand just a little of the panic the villagers must feel every night. Tapon is slogging, through the mud just behind me. He taps me on the shoulder and shows me his hand. It's shaking. This is all your fault. He says in aloud, whisper. I whispered back. Yeah, but whose idea was all of this in the first place? I never thought we'd be doing this. He says, besides you are the one who chickened out this morning, I didn't chicken out. I felt, I thought, I mean, who know we'd be here looking for monster elephants who knew the full cure would go off and leave us so far behind. Because at this point, the folk here is so far ahead that even if his powers are real, he is of no use to us. You know, a little bit about this. I say, if Malcolm's charging out of the bushes right now, why don't we do run? We'd be no match on foot from Mo. He says, maybe we could climb a tree. I say, are you blind? Can't you see that? There aren't even any trees that would be tall enough. I look around again. It's true here on the edges of the forest, the undergrowth is dense, but there are only a few trees, more than two or three meters. Tall. People have cut down almost every tree of substance. So what you're saying is that if Moe comes out of the forest right now and wants to attack us, there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm contemplating the consequences of these words. When top one says, Hey, wait a minute. I have an idea. Remember what my brother said about Bodie Allen? Forcier's name that if Moe hears it, he won't hurt you. Maybe we can try that. If they come, we can call out, Ooh, buddy Allen, four gears coming. Maybe that will make them leave us alone. It doesn't feel like much, but it's a straw. And we cling to it. As we go deeper into the forest and start to climb a silence settles over the elephant party. Other sounds come to the fore, the chatter of birds, the hum of insects, the crunch of dinner, plate size liens, and the snap and swish of our bodies running through the bushes. None of it is so loud or all consuming as the beating of my heart and the buzzing in my head. I keep what if scenarios to myself, none more than how I will explain my death by stupidity to my husband and children. When I meet them in the afterlife, I realize I am gambling with my life on nothing more than faith, faith in the protective power of the full care. And as a last resort in the mysterious power of my Brown shirt, I can't decide nor do I really want to at this point, what I believe or indeed, if I have any faith at all, but I do know I'd rather be up there with the full cure and his gun rather than back here with all of the people the elephants have come to hate. Still at this point, any human company is better than none. And I have to say it does cross my mind more than once that at least here among the villagers, no doubt, wood cutters and forest destroyers to a man. If the elephants want flood, there's a decent chance that with so many others to get through first, it might not be mine. We charged the bushes, head down, stepping over Loaf sized piles of fresh elephant, dung winding our way back, farther and farther into a narrow Valley blanketed in thick vines and made cool by the shade of towering, garbage on trees at the crest of a low Hill, we come upon two intersecting paths, not footpaths, but elephant paths. I watched the man in front of me who holds a stick as well as a machete stop and using more care than I've ever seen a Bangladeshi use in crossing a major road. Look first left then right? Weapons held high. He tenses ready to strike, seeing nothing. He hunches low and disappears across the path and into the forest. Again, we move on an up on an up crashing through the forest until after what seems like an eternity. The party slows to a stop and the full cure comes into view ahead. One hand fingering his green prayer beads, the other propping up the butt of his gun. He considers the clues, broken branches, trampled bushes, heaps of dung gashes left by elephant toenails in the soil. Woody Allen full cure looks at all of us. He raises a finger to his lips. Then he lowers his hand and pats the air to say slowly, quietly. And then we hear Sighs and moans a low Growl coming from the Hill directly below Us, the snap and pop of Twix. The full Kier smiles then points to the Hill that falls away below us. They're here buried deep in the forest, the full cure motions For us to follow and glides off without a sound. We make our way to the back of the narrow Valley. And there from a clearing, less than 50 meters distance, we see them, their trunks reach up, curl around branches and vines and snap them off. The air is electric with the growls and gurgling of elephant conversation too. They know where here top on whispers to the folk here. No, he says they're too relaxed. After a few minutes, one of the elephants emerges from the undergrowth pitching and rolling up the steep slope. We passed a few minutes earlier, Bodie Alan folkier grabs my arm and points to its big gray back. Soon more backs emerge a big back, coated white with dust, several smaller backs and more medium-sized backs. We count nine elephants in all an adolescent male in the company of eight females. We stand and watch in stunned, silence. Even the men who've joined us from the villages seem to Marvel at the animals. But after a few minutes, one of the men we acquired in him. Tree grabs the full cures arm, shoot the bastards. He demands. Then we can sleep in peace. At least for a few nights. The other men whisper not their agreement. The full queue looks down into the faces of the men, gathered around him, his own face, radiates that same mixture of peace and pity. He smiled down on us earlier. He doesn't move the gun from its perch on his shoulder. How can I do that? He asks, turning to look at the elephants. Are they not? God's creatures? Just like you and me nine, the deed is done. Unkind words have been spoken about elephants in the forest. We should have expected what happened next. The full care turns and disappears into the bushes. Going back in the direction from which we've come. None of us wants to be here without the full care and his gun. So the entire elephant party shoots off through the forest. After him, we storm the undergrowth in a panic to catch up with him, oblivious to the noise we're making. Just as we catch sight of him, we hear a crashing in the bushes below we freeze. It's the elephants they're coming. And from the sound of it, they're going to pitch out right in the midst of us, the men start shouting to have them bend, to collect sticks and stones and leap onto the branches of a massive tree that overlooks Hill and the elephants. Yeah. They shout in a wild panic at D yeah. They hurl sticks and stones at the backs of the elephants. No yells top on and to me don't they? No, they shouldn't call them Hottie. Don't they know they shouldn't be throwing things at the elephants. There's thunder in the bushes. A trumpet of anger. Rips the sky still dementia. Hot. Yeah. Hottie. Yeah, only now it's more of a screen. The others on the ground are shouting to throwing things at the rumbling bushes. Hattie. Yeah. Now they're hurling the sticks. Javelin style. The bushes shake. The air is alive with elephant shouts. Where is the full cure? Where is our protector? I bend and pick up a stick myself. I look at chop on he's waving madly and yelling something at me. But the pounding of my heart in my ears is so loud. I can't hear him. I tell my legs to run, but they refused. What use would it be anyway? How do you, yeah. How do you, yeah, the earth trembles a shrill blast. Shatters the air. Where is the folkier run? I tell myself run, but my legs are made of led hot D yeah. Hot D yeah. The forest rides. The lowest. I raised the stick they're coming. They're coming. Be still. I look up to see the full here, standing in a small clearing on the path. The sound of his voice hits the other side of the Valley and echoes back over us. It is followed by silence. The bushes are still, the men are still. We look at the book here. He looks at us as his eyes traveled from one face to the next. His face shows no sign of pity, his eyes, no warmth or kindness. Finally, his eyes reach mine. They travel the length of my arm before coming to rest on the stick. In my hand, then shouldering his gun. He turns and walks off down the path and is swallowed by the forest. We have the elephant party look at each other. And while the bushes are still silent, we run

Speaker 5: 58:47

10.

Kelley Lynch: 58:49

It is late afternoon. As the silent elephant party passes back through the villages we pass through earlier in the day, people are cooking and eating. Some are gathering their belongings to take up into the tongs for the night when the last of the men is gone top on and the here. And I settle in for the long walk back without looking at either of us. The folk here says these people have no sympathy for the elephants. It feels like a Barb comment. One name just As much at me as the men, we've just left behind. They're scared. I say hoping he'll understand that. What I really mean is I was scared. Sorry about the stick slides. Smile in my direction. Makes me think he got the message. The full cure continues. What I'm saying is that people don't stop to think how it is for the elephants. 30 or 40 years ago. The forest was so thick that people would never dream of going into it. There were a lot of elephants, tigers bears and other wild animals. But in the last 25 years, the human population of this area has shot up and people have moved deeper into the forest, cutting it down, selling the trees, making a place to build their houses, clearing space for Patty fields. So now in a very short time, there's no space and no food for the elephants, but how can you expect people to think about the elephants when they're also poor and hungry top on asks? That's the problem. The faqir says in this war, neither side can afford to compromise. We walk on in silence watching as the clouds, flare Alaska, luminous pink and the sky on the horizon settles briefly into a pale yellow before resigning itself to the blue gray light of dusk. I guess the people will be happy when all the elephants are gone. I say the folk here, nods, they are more scared of elephants than they are of the angel of death. He says, they'll be happy because when they're gone, people will be able to go into the forest without fear. But I hate to think what will happen when they're gone without the elephants, the forest will no longer exist. People will steal every last tree and there will be nothing to stop them. And what these people do not yet realize is that if they finish the forest, they too will die. Why is that? I ask in this area, 90% of the people depend entirely on the forest for their survival. He says they sell wood to meet their want. That's their only livelihood. What will they do when the forest is gone? Eat dirt?

Speaker 5: 1:01:49

Chapter 11.

Kelley Lynch: 1:01:55

That night back at Tapon's house in Malumghat, I'm taking a shower when I hear shouts coming from the fields below the house. Voices shout with the same panic as the men in the forest earlier in the day, the shouts are followed by the shrill blast of an angry elephant. When I finish, I come out and stand on the veranda with top on and Joseph who are looking out into the darkness below Mo's on the move. Joseph says in a low voice, they're moving from that patch of forest. He says pointing to some low Hills in the East to that one over there near Bodie Ellenville cures farm. It's going to be a long night on the way they'll have to move through many farms. It's like they live in a zoo already top on says, but with people and Patty fields for fences, from where we stand, we can see the yellow glow of the people's fiery torches bobbing across the blackness below. There are more shrill voices, another elephant blast from the looks of it. The whole village is out trying to keep the giants out of their fields and away from their houses. Don't you want to go there and find the full cure and experience at all for yourself. Joseph asks a none too subtle note of sarcasm in his voice top on. And I look at each other, no way The skirmishes rage on until nearly 3:00 AM. As I lay in bed listening, I think back over the day, that's when I realized I still can't answer with any certainty. The question of whether or not the full care has any particular power over the elephants. It might've been the simple fact of him shouting that stopped them. Then again, is that even what happened? I was so panicked. I can't say for sure, but now after all that we've seen and heard and experienced, the question seems to be beside the point, most seen, talked about Holy men whose power over wild animals gave people some comfort, some peace of mind, presumably in the form of some power to protect them and their property, but power or no. The Bodie Allen folk here we experienced was something different over the course of the day, he'd said and done nothing that led me to believe he was remotely in the business of comforting, fearful people, including me. He understood both sides in this impossible conflict. If anything, he seemed to have thrown his lot in with the elephants That night I dreamed of the full care. I saw him standing. Yeah. In the midst of the confused and angry giants, he was calming them, easing them on, come on now, move, move. As he shifted them, I saw that he wasn't alone. There was another man with him, a man with long hair and a turbine. It was so gear Shaw. He too was moving the elephants on. I watched as the two of them worked together, the Saint who started the process of clearing the jungle and making it fit for humans. And the folk here is devoted disciple. Who's living the inevitable conclusion of the process. The Saint set in motion 700 years ago, epilogue when top on and I went to the forest with Bodie album full care in 2003, I UCN had just finished Bangladesh's first elephant census. And though I didn't know it at the time. The second was just wrapping up. When I returned to Bangladesh to visit Bodhi Allen for care. And December of 2015, it seemed like good news. The official estimate of resident elephants in Bangladesh had gone from 178 to 268 with a mean of 93 migratory non-residents. However, the report concluded. It was entirely possible that the result owed more to the improved methodology of the study than to an actual increase in numbers. When we found Bodhi Alim folk here at his house, he had just returned from an eight day stint guarding Patty fields. Before the upcoming rice harvest asked about the current situation for the elephants. He said that things had become much more difficult for them. They have increased in number. You told us unaware that there had ever been a formal elephant census, but it's not because people are protecting them. They're just having babies. And so are the people, people are encroaching on the forest more and more. Every day he said, they've cut down almost all of the big trees. So the forest department decided to plant some new ones to make room for them. They cleared out the bamboo and the vines that the elephants eat. So now they really don't have any food. The other night I was guarding a field when a couple of elephants came and saluted me. They complained that their stomachs were empty. And I told them, even if you salute me, I don't have any food for you. Go to the coastal area where they have more rice. Not long after some people from there called me up. He said, they told me your elephants have come to our area. And I told them, we don't have much rice here. You have more give it to them. But they only insulted the elephants by throwing their shoes at them. He laughed. So the elephants destroyed their vegetables. You know, if the elephants had enough food and water, they wouldn't disturb anyone. I've been asking the forest department to establish a big garden for them. But beyond that, I don't know what to do. The number of people has increased so much that I really can't help the elephants anymore. What do you think will happen in the future? I asked the full Kier, raised his hands to the sky. That is something that only the owner knew.[inaudible] Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I enjoyed sharing it with you. And if you did, I hope you'll share it on. Be sure to check out the show notes on our website, a new normal podcast.com where I'll post some of the photos I took for this episode. A warning. There are no pictures of the elephants at that time. In 2003, I was just starting out in my photographic career and due to poor decisions about shutter speed and lens choice. I totally missed the shot on the subject of our website. We are working on rebranding ourselves. Those of you who've been with us for a while, may have noticed a shift in the tone of the podcast. Recently, we've been giving a lot of thought to who we are and the kinds of stories we want to tell in keeping with the most recent episodes we've decided to call it matters big and small. There's a lot of work on the backend to make this happen. And I'm not sure how long it will take, but I just wanted to let all of, you know, in advance. So that one day when you are redirected to matters big and small podcast.com, you don't think you're in the wrong place. In the meantime, we're still at the old website. Again, a new normal podcast.com. Please take a minute to rate and review the show. It really takes just a minute, really. And it makes a huge difference to us. As we continue to build our audience, we really appreciate you taking the time to help us out while you're there. Be sure to sign up for our newsletter. We'll still have your email, even in the transition. We've got some ideas brewing for the next episode and look forward to being back in your ears soon until then take care.