Nepal Shakes To Elephant Clash (1986)

 

Nepal Shakes to Elephant Clash

By Nic Ellis

The Age

January 25, 1986

The scene is the royal Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal. Something quite bizarre is about to happen. Anticipation hangs as heavy as the winter morning mist.

     In a tent to one side, a team of British Gurkhas adjusts field boots and solar topees, ready for the fray. In the next tent, the military qualities of the opposition look doubtful. The leader stubs out a cigarette and pulls himself from a chair. "C'mon, team!" The Liverpudlian drawl is unmistakable. It is Ringo Starr, his face half hidden by a solar topee.

     The two teams mount and take up position on the field of combat.  Shadowy figures in the mist, a bell sounds beyond the pall. Battle begins...

     This is polo on elephants. For the next 10 minutes, the earth groans under 30 tonnes of elephant flesh as the two teams of four trundle around the field after a standard four-inch polo ball. A referee with the flag and whistle keeps an eye on play from atop a huge bull tusker. There is 15 minutes cooling off for the elephants, a flurry of tactile chatter, and the team's swap ends, and elephants for a second 10 Minute chukka. Brigadier Miles Hunt-Davis' Gurkhas manage two goals. Ringo Starr's team, sponsored by Paris jewelers Cartier, and fielding Ringo and his actress wife Barbara Bach, singer-comedian Billy Connolly, and Max Boyce, managed none. 

    The first scores are on the board at the 1985 World Elephant Polo Championships.

     "Cartier were pathetic," laughs Jim Edwards, but does not mean it.  "Seriously," he said, "They were terrific fun. They had added a new dimension to this year's competition."

     Edwards is the father of modern elephant polo and boss of Tiger Tops, a luxury Jungle Lodge deep in Royal Chitwan National Park. Tiger Tops has hosted the elephant polo championships each year since their inception in 1982.

     A Punch cartoonist first mooted elephant polo early in the century when he drew an Indian polo team on elephants after they had thrashed the opposition during a tour of Britain. Except for the odd game in Jaipur, the idea never took off. Then Jim Edwards met a Scottish "gentleman farmer," James Manclark at the Toboggan Club in St. Mortiz, and elephant Polo was reborn over late-night cocktails. 

    Elephant Polo is based on pony polo. The field is smaller, and there are two10-minute chukkas instead of four. The rules state that players must not ride across opponents or knock each other off their mounts. Players are roped to a ghadi, a cushion on the elephant's back, and ride behind a mahout who guides the beast around the field using a steel goad or a deft kick behind the ear. All that is left for the players to do is to wield a giant polo stick and connect with the ball.

     "It's been likened to playing golf with a fishing rod from the top of a moving Land Rover," said a first timer, Colin Morris. Morris, a dapper English Concorde pilot, is the captain of the newly formed British Airways Elephant Polo Team. 

    "This is the first time I've piloted a jumbo," quips Morris. "Concordes are far easier. At least I have some control over what I'm doing."

     British Airways and Cartier are the novice teams of the competition. The regulars include two home sides, the Tiger Tops Tuskers, led by Jim Edwards, and the women's team, the Tigeresses. Then there is Manclark's Scottish team with professional polo players, the Pan Am sponsored Jumbos, a women's team backed by Oberol hotels and British brigades of Gurkhas and the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation. Intrepid visitors make up the 10th team.

     Day two dawns another misty morning. As the day hots up so does the action. The Oberol ladies draw British Airways and comes through the first chukka one up. Manclark races to their aid with paternal advice, offering anything, his country estate, his teams of polo ponies, his body, if they knock British Airways out of contention. The ladies oblige. Manclark does not.

     Jim Edwards looks concerned that his Tuskers have only managed to hold Manclark's team to a nil- all draw at halftime. "What will be your tactics from here?" Someone asked. "I'm going to drink a Bloody Mary," said Edwards and strides off in the direction of the busiest tent. It works. Tuskers win one-nil. 

    Day three produces Cartier's moment of glory. They pull a score out of the hat against Tuskers a two- nil down in the second chukka. They mount a desperate attack on the home side's goal, while Billy Connolly remains solid and on defense. Ringo directs traffic up front. "Okay, Barb, you've got the ball now. Whack it!"  But Barbara is disoriented. "Where's the ball? What's going on?" The captain is courageous. He disappears into the fray and emerges with the ball. Max Boyce is positioned on the smallest, most nifty elephant, "Ringo! Ringo! Ringo!"  Ringo passes like a veteran. Max takes a swipe, and the ball whistles through the uprights to rapturous applause. The Cartier dignity remains untarnished,  just. 

    But it is the only goal Tuskers concede. They brush aside the Pan Am Jumbos in the semi-finals on the fourth day to meet the King Mahendra Trust in the fifth-day final. In a hard-fought game, Tuskers win through with the only goal of the match. Three minutes into extra time, the scoreer Prithi Ram, a Tiger's Top elephant handler, is the toast of the tournament.

    It is time to pop the Moet et Chandon.