Sahyadrica

This long-form article covers roughly 500 years of history of wild Asian elephants in the central Indian highlands – a history that is still being written. It is an excerpt of a larger piece on central India I am working on. Given the recent happenings on wild elephants in India – and particularly central India – it is time we revisited our history to see how far we have come and where we’re headed. No Country For Wild Elephants That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song, The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. -- Sailing to Byzantium (1928) by William Butler Yeats This article is a part of a book on Central India, titled Our Roots Run Wild. It is available on Amazon India:  https://amzn.in/d/cvF8d60

There is no one, really, to mourn her death. Her eyes, they say, were like a wraith’s Heavy and sombre, unlike any animal Something born in blazing fire! They say, they know, when a tiger is a tiger. They call themselves all-rational. That the embodiment of a man-eater Is an abomination – tag her a murderer! Unable to kill or secure her meal, Something that should not exist in real. To what end is her life, what was her story? A lifetime spent reckoning deaths – nay, murders Cast out not by her own kin but human furore Erased from existence by unsympathetic orders! They say, they know, when a tiger is a tiger. There is no one, really, to mourn her death Yet she lives on under everyone’s breath Under what name –   scornful or profane In what story – irrational, of an old witch’s bane Or tragic, a mother who died without a name.