Menace Of The Mammoth Spirit

India is a land of ancient myths and legends. There is a steadfast belief in things like spirits, meanings of dreams and tantra – an ancient portal of sorts to the worlds beyond, accessed by practice, rigour and madness. If a black cat crosses one’s path, a small prayer whispered under the breath is necessary to ward off bad luck. If a love interest leaves mid journey, feeding a couple of bread loves a day to stray cattle for 21 straight days might bring them back. If a particular dream disturbs through the night, a night awake with chants and dances will set the spirit controlling the dream free.

India is also a land of leaping technological advances. There is a way around everything using technology ranging from the ancient to the uber modern. If a tap is leaking, a plastic bag would do the trick. If a new car needs to be kept anew, not removing the plastic sheets from its upholstery is the only way to ensure it. If at a family cook out, one suddenly runs out of coriander or flour or even something as basic as salt, a few taps on the smartphone will ensure home delivery within 20 minutes flat!

This is a story that exemplifies these two aspects of India. This is a story that regales in the horrors of the ancient and dwells in the omnipresence of the modern. This is a story of a people whose thoughts and actions have long been held captive by the western world merely because they do not conform to their scientific ideals. This is a story of tryst with destiny. This is a story which is a real as it is surreal.

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Once upon a time in a village deep inside the rainforests of the Indian peninsula, there lived a cabal of mammoths. These giant creatures were magical to the natives. No, they did not possess magical abilities nor could they be thought of as divine beings having descended on Earth from the abodes of the gods. No. These giant animals were considered magical because they had this one single ability that made them stand out from the rest of the fauna inhabiting the jungle. And this was their ability to creep up without making a sound. The whole gang of mammoths would wander the jungle, bathing in the rivers and stomping on the sand, for days on end. They would feed on fruits from the trees and nectar from the trunks. They would make merry all day long and sleep like logs for days on end. But there were times when these giants would encroach the land that the humans tilled. They would prance through the high grass and come up on a clearing that the humans had made to sow their crops. With man eaters like tigers and lions and foxes and even hyenas, there were signs that the humans were wary of and could be warned by; a growl, a stench, the ruffling of leaves and twigs etc. One would believe that for mammoths, the hugest of these creatures, their arrival would have a certain forewarning to it. But that was never the case. Scores of them would simply just turn up one morning, or late one night. There would be no sounds of crushed fauna, no sounds of their moving gait, no sounds of grunts or snarls. It would be as if these massive entities had been placed upon the land by a force of nature that was beyond human comprehension. Though these mammoths were not meat eaters, this sudden unannounced arrival of theirs placed the humans in direct line of danger. If the families were busy in the fields, minding their own business, and these mammoths showed up, there would be certain panic. The men in the fields would shout at the sight and abandon their chores to run to their dwellings. This commotion would agitate the usually calm mammoths. They would run after the running men and reach the village square, trampling anything and anyone that came in their way. Once in the village, they would see even more commotion, even more panic. This would agitate them further and they would run wild, dangerously bobbing their hefty ivory tusks. The people had nowhere to hide. These big giants would trounce over the mud houses, the kitchen gardens and the children. They would swing their trunks at the barking pets, gorge the men carrying torches and flatten the women lying in prayer under their quintal heavy feet. And once the dust settled, blood, skin and bones were the only things left to tell the tale of gore and horror that had come to pass in a matter of minutes.

Years and decades and maybe even centuries went by and these simple Indian villagers continued to suffer at the hands, or one should say feet, of the magical mammoths. No matter how hard they tried, they could never predict when the mammoths would enter their peaceful domains and wreak havoc for no rhyme or reason. They even tried to mimic their survival tactics when faced with a bear or a lion. They would stand still, motionless, to make sure that the mammoths would not start running amok. But the mere presence of these creatures was enough to ensure that one or the other human would start to panic and run. This would encourage an avalanche of sorts with people running helter-skelter. And the rest was a similar and familiar sight of mammoths wiping out entire communities.

The men had had enough. With their brains and whatnot, they were the rulers of all creations. They were the very image of gods. So, with consensus, it was decided that a trap shall be laid and the menace of the mammoths would finally be put to rest. The plan was simple and ingenious. Many had thought of it before but no one dared to believe that it would ever work. Now that the water had crossed over the bridge, this was their best bet. All the villages across central India were circumferenced by a deep gorge around them. In these gorges were placed sharpened trunks of trees. Inside this perimeter, the villagers stayed with their cattle. Even the farms were accommodated inside this circle. The simple bear traps were huge in size; They had to be for them to be effective. And effective they were too! Gangs upon gangs of mammoths would turn up at different villages spread across the jungle and would only manage to slip and skid inside the gorge. Many would be pierced by the sharp trunks and would die, while some others would escape the trunks but still fail to climb back up from the deep trench, dying eventually of hunger and thirst. This massacre of an entire generation of mammoths continued for years, decades or maybe even centuries. But men being men, lived on their lives, built civilizations and spaceships, and continued to trample on each other with nuclear wars, manmade viruses and climate change. Mammoths or no mammoths, humans thrived, only to reach till today.

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The year is 2042. A group of zoologists, botanists and historical scientists descend from all over the world on to the Pench National Park in Madhya Pradesh, bang in the centre of India. No, it is not a science congregation or a world conference of some sort. It is an urgent appeal by the government of India to the world of natural science experts to rid them of a peculiar problem facing the whole of central India’s depleting yet thriving jungles – the menace of the mammoth spirits.

Reports of stomped out vegetation, decapitated animal remains and fossilised humans have been a cause of mystery over the past decade or so. Earlier, around 2022, it was believed to be an extension of the Corona virus pandemic. But even after 20 years of research, no evidence supporting this claim came forth. The local human belief of this being the work of spirits was shunned unequivocally by all and sundry, except for one man – the now Prime Minister of India, Dr. Nagendra Godi. The world is no stranger to this man and his vision, but never before had he faced such backlash on any issue, be it global wars, global pandemics or global economic crises. Godi did what he knew best. He visited the sites of these strange findings and talked to locals face-to-face. He was told about the spirits by each and every one of the village dwellers. A kid whom he encountered on one of his treks across the Pench jungle said, ‘Sir, please save us from these ghosts of ancient past!’ Another, a woman in her mid-30s this time ventured an opinion, ‘Sir, I lost my father and husband to these spirits. They shocked them to death! I wish that these unruly ghosts be put to rest in the netherworld.’ And finally, an elder with no teeth and no hair and a waistline as thin as a basketball hoop suggested the truth, ‘Sir, I know you mean business. But this business of spirits is beyond us mere mortals. It would require a super being to tame these spirits of the mammoths.’ And thus, the story of the mammoth genocide opened to the nation. Godi believed in it so much that he ordered all natural science research to focus exclusively on this issue. Historians worked day and night. Zoologists burnt the midnight oils. And even researchers currently pursuing their doctorates in eminent universities across India spend countless hours tracing the histories of the giant Indian mammoths. The west, as usual, declined to participate in this which hunt. They ridiculed and criticised the superstitious beliefs of the Indian people and fell back on their usual arguments of India being a land of snake charmers looking for newer snakes to charm in this modern era of scientific rigour. But Godi would have nothing of it. He continued to stay in Pench, amidst the scared citizenry, with his chosen scientists for company. The villagers stayed inside the whole day and especially at night. News of entire villages and settlements being run a ground came in thick and fast. Many administrators of the nation urged Godi to leave, but he was a hero who wanted to stay and see this through. Years passed, but there was no respite. Blaring sounds of dead mammoth clans reverbed through the dense jungles of central India. Townsfolk, though distant from this nightmare, could not resist being unnerved. Not a day went by when at least a score of humans were not maimed, mauled or outright squished by the spirits of these ancient mammoths. With no solution in sight, the nation was ready to raise the white flag and abandon the villages and the jungles and head to the cities. Until one day, a young lad, Thakur, made a discovery that led to an invention.

Thakur believed in the theory of the ancient mammoths returning as spirits to haunt the descendants of their pogrom organizers. His team had been excavating the ruins of temples in the jungles when he stumbled upon some inscriptions on pieces of plastic. The drawing and letters were almost alien, but the communication was clear and persistent – ‘Mammoths will take revenge!’ He insisted that this was the evidence that the world needed to pursue a course of action never taken before in human history; A collective congregation of spiritual leaders to perform dark arts on the soul of the forests. But he knew that this suggestion would mean even more backlash, if not assisted with a tangible proof of concept. So, he went all out and decided to create a virtual world as close to the real one as possible. His coding prowess came in handy as he navigated the loopholes and the architecture of this brave new world. His world had the exact contours of the central Indian region and could instantly shift between eras of time. This meant that a man from 2042 could easily interact with a mammoth roaming around in circa 2042 BC. This also meant that if a human could convince the ancestors of mammoths to leave the humankind alone, it could not only solve their current predicament but also pave way to a new kind of world which giants and humans could cohabit.

With the strength of his belief, Thakur approached Godi. And Godi, understood. He hailed the brains of this young man and this new India. He held press conferences to urge the westerners to look at this invention and assist them in putting a peaceful end to this menace of the mammoth spirits. And the world, listened.

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Armed with Thakur’s tech, many experts started roaming the jungles in search of these spirits. The plan was to first encounter these ghosts and then to time travel and try and persuade them to not curse the humans for their blatant transgressions. A zoologist from Pakistan, of all places, had the first breakthrough. She was walking with her team near a dwelling that had recently been gored to death by the mammoth spirits when she sensed wind blowing behind her. She turned around sharply, expecting a leopard or a snake. But there was nothing there. She continued onwards, still sensing something following her. After a few hours of trek, she came out onto a clearing in the jungle. This, in itself, was unusual as this part of the forest had not come up on any of the satellite imagery reading that had been captured thus far. She rechecked her compass to made sure that her bearings were right. A gust of wind blew away her papers and tablets and phones. The guards held on to their guns firmly but uselessly as there was no enemy in sight. She knelt down to pray, thinking that this was probably their last breath, and closed her eyes in honest reverence of the beasts that had gotten all modern-day messiahs grovelling for answers. And from the darkness of her mind’s eyes, she saw them; The beasts that roamed the Earth when mankind was just about spreading its wings. She saw the cabal of mammoths coming close to her. She saw them trying to stay clear of human settlements but panicking at the sight of panicking humans. She even saw how a few mammoths tried to save kids but failed as their own kids were running scared due to the fires and the shouting of human beings. And thus, she understood. She understood the basic error that had led them to this day. She understood that missing communication between the mammoths and the humans led to an India-wide mammoth hunt which not only obliterated the entire mammoth population, but also cursed the future human generations with burdens of blood on their hands.

All villages and cities and metropolises of the world united now. They all wore their VR sets and entered the jungle world. And they prayed to the mammoths for forgiveness. They swore to not let their human instincts of revenge and genocide take centre stage ever again. They even swore to stop manufacturing cars and guns and spaceships, all to placate the spirits of mammoths. This went on for years, decades and maybe even centuries. Until finally, the mammoths’ spirits paid heed. The supernatural violence that had become second nature to humanity, ceased. The mauling of children across the jungles of central India, stopped. The stomping of women praying ended. The men were finally forgiven for their ancient sins of committing murders of hundreds of mammoths. Godi, the hero, was hailed for his foresight. Thakur was honoured for his invention. And that nameless Pakistani scientist was never heard of again.

They say that she suffered a stroke soon after her revelation. But if you ask the locals, they believe that she was done away with by the powers that be to make sure that the credit stayed with them. A kid running through Pench was heard saying, ‘Now her spirit will come to haunt us. But at least she is not as big as the mammoths.’