The time was just past seven in the morning. I was dressed and ready when the telephone rang. The District Forest Officer (DFO), Nuwara Eliya was on the line to tell me that he was leaving for Nanu Oya in his jeep to pick me up as planned to drive to Bibile and Nilgala. I was then living in the District Engineer’s quarters, a huge house with nine rooms, totally disproportionate to the frugal needs of a bachelor like me. The house, built in British times for the use of the Chief Construction Engineer (and probably his assistants) who were in charge of laying new tracks in the upcountry areas, was located on a sprawling four-acres atop a hill in the centre of the Glassaugh tea estate.

As I had a few minutes until the arrival of the jeep, I walked towards the front of the house and stood at the door step for a breath of fresh air. It was as if the refreshing, cool and gentle breeze so characteristic of Nanu Oya on a clear day, was waiting to greet me. On my walk to office every morning I have taken the opportunity as often as I could, as I did this day, to wander around and absorb the beauty of the scenery that was unfolding before my eyes. The perch offered me a vantage point from which I could pan through one hundred and eighty degrees of the landscape.

Straight ahead and beyond the valley was the trapezoidal range of green- carpeted mountains. As a backdrop, set against the deep blue sky and rising heavenwards majestically, was Adam’s Peak, blessed by Lord Buddha more than 2,500 years ago and venerated ever since by millions of devotees year after year. The view to my right was the precipitous slope of the Great Western Mountains showing traces of the embankment of the rail track laid to manageable gradients for the trains, emerging from Tunnel No. 17 as it began the last steep ascent to the Nanu Oya railway station. The first rays of the early morning sun having partly pierced patches of silvery clouds were descending upon the greenery, bathing the landscape with light sunshine

The British engineers while blazing a trail and selecting the trace through the up country region had endowed us with a masterpiece of scenic beauty and a railway track laid along that trace with 19th century technology which had turned out to be an engineering feat of no mean repute.

I was almost rudely disturbed by the roar of the jeep ‘climbing on all 4’ along the rugged, narrow and difficult 1 in 8 slopes of the estate road to my quarters. I walked down to meet the vehicle and joined the DFO, my Inspector of Permanent Way, his peon and my chainman who were already in the jeep. We were beginning the first leg of our journey to the Bibile rest house and eventually to Nilgala off Medagama, a hamlet about ten miles from Bibile on the Bibile - Wellawaya road.

Jeeps and picnics to forests do not ordinarily belong to a railway engineer’s lot. This trip, however, was part of the legitimate duties of the incumbent District Engineer, Nanu Oya, when the time comes to inspect and take over, jointly with the DFO, sleepers offered by the Forest Department for use on railway tracks. On a request made by the Forest Department at some point of time, the railway had agreed to this arrangement that would avoid unnecessary costs to the Forest Department of transporting defective, unacceptable sleepers to the railhead. Whether the journey was official or a holiday safari into the wilds, there was no doubt in any of our minds that it would be filled with fun and adventure. For that reason we looked forward to this trip as a diversion from routine duties of a railway engineer.

The route we were taking that day on the first leg of our journey to Bibile was through Welimada, Badulla, and Passara. As if to keep up with the mood of the journey, no sooner we got to know each other, the conversation turned to elephants and forest life. The driver was the first to remark that he had been to this particular wadiya a few times and that he was aware a rouge elephant was roaming around the area. As a railway man I knew of a monster that we in the railways fear so much – the black mechanical yakada yaka monster - the locomotive, and how we could avoid clashes with it. But we had no experience with a raging mammoth pachyderm! Were any of them in the jeep armed? The DFO reassured us that we had no reason to fear since the Range Forest Officer who would be joining us on the way was well equipped to handle any situation. He even could tame a charging elephant with ‘mantras’!

The elephant talk continued. The DFO offered his version of a centuries-old theory that elephants were intelligent animals known to carry grudges against humans. He began to narrate the story of King Dutugemunu’s warrior-giant, Nandimitra, and the elephant Kandula used as the King’s vehicle. Some of us had read the story in school books during our days in primary school: "The elephant Kandula had once been defeated by Nandimitra when the warrior had challenged the elephant to a show of strength. Ever since, Kandula was known to have kept a stone in his mouth awaiting an opportunity to hit Nandimitta and settle the score,’’ said the DFO.

On the day of the famous battle to bring down the Vijithapura fortress and defeat Elara, Kandula was very much in the front lines. At one moment when the Vijuthpura fortress was under siege and falling apart, Kandula was exposed to a large piece of falling debris. On seeing the danger to the elephant, Nandimitra momentarily stepped forward, and with his bare hands deflected the `missile’ away from Kandula saving his life. ``That was the moment that Kandula threw the stone he carried in is mouth away in the view of everyone present and raised his trunk in salute to Nandimitra, bringing a sigh of relief all round. Kandula was forgiving him, forgetting the past and was now offering him his gratitude," concluded the DFO.

My inspector had been intently listening to the story from the back seat of the jeep. Not to be outdone, he brought out the ‘twentieth century version’ - according to him of an instance he knew where an elephant attempted to settle a grudge. Although an encounter with elephants would bring disaster to humans in elephant territory, jumbo is no match if it happens to walk across territory belonging to the CGR – the railway track - in an attempt to beat an oncoming train for example. It will destroy itself without question, and may even cause a derailment with equally disastrous consequences to the passengers.

On the Batticaloa line beyond Gal Oya, there used to be vast areas of elephant- infested jungle. The elephant corridors along which elephants usually walk in search of food and water crossed the railway line in a few places. On the day in question, a baby elephant was playing on the track unconcerned about the train approaching from the direction of Gal Oya. There used to be warning boards on the approaches to these elephant corridors from both directions cautioning locomotive drivers to slow down and blow a long whistle to drive any elephants on the track to safety. Whether the driver observed these warnings in this instance was not clear. However the inevitable happened. The impact of a sixty -ton mass of metal with the momentum it carries at its speed was sufficient to instantly kill the baby elephant. Fortunately he was not large enough to cause a derailment but was thrown off the track Undeterred, the driver sped away.

It was not the end of story though. The mother elephant was feeding not from the scene. She-elephants are very protective of their offspring against known dangers. It hasn’t been so in this instance. She became restless and came dashing towards the fallen baby with her trunk raised and trumpeting shrilly. It was a cry of pain and anger. She would run towards the baby in one instance and run towards the track in the other. And she kept repeating this as if to bring the dead baby to life. She didn’t leave even when the herd left her. She was in fact waiting for the return of the train to ‘square up things’ and mete out summary punishment. Did her intuition tell her that the department of railways wouldn’t do justice?

That train surely was due back. But the driver though errant he may have been would not return after such a long journey. As soon as the train came within sight, she became even more agitated. She got close to the track as the train kept approaching the scene of the accident. The driver began to whistle but that didn’t scare the animal away. . Moments before the locomotive got near her, she raised cries and dealt one hard blow with her trunk on the speeding locomotive. The trunk severed off at the point of impact. She ran a few steps and collapsed dead in a heap

We reached the Bibile rest house by late afternoon ravenously hungry. The rest house, however, could offer us only a scrappy meal as it was long past lunch- time. After lunch and a brief rest we recommenced our journey. The forest officer joined us in the jeep as the sixth member of the group. He informed the DFO that the contractor would be meeting us at Medagama where we would turn into the forest. When we caught up with the contractor, he was ready seated on the driver’s seat of a tractor. He took a left turn onto an unpaved mud road and led the way escorting us into the forest of Nilgala which was our ultimate destination.

After a few miles all traces of the mud road disappeared. Finding the way thereafter was left to the wit and the wisdom of the contractor on whom the forest officers heavily relied as he had been a long serving man. There was hardly a road to see. For the first fourteen miles deep into the forest we passed through forest cover full of trees of almost the same height and very similar to each other. The Range Forest Officer explained to us that these were forests grown during pre-colonial times and that they were all medicinal trees. There were three species - Aralu, Bulu and Nelli. The bark of these trees, measured in given proportions by weight and boiled with water to a concentrate, was a famous purgative prescribed by physicians practicing ayurveda locally. These three varieties with Rasakinda and Rathkihiriya used to be similarly given as cure for other common ailments. I was to later learn that these forests came to be preserved under the aegis of UNESCO. There were a further two miles to the wadiya where we arrived before nightfall. It was surprising that the medicinal trees have remained untouched up to then.

The wadiya was in sight and we still had a few hours of daylight left. The DFO asked me whether I would mind inspecting a few of the stacks close to the wadiya as we approached it. I agreed and we proceeded to inspect the first few stacks of sleepers made ready for our inspection. We thought it wise to keep the jeep not very far from where we were working. As we got down from the jeep, I asked my chainman for the two foot ruler and the tape which I had handed over to him the previous day.

The chainman is the designated employee to hold one end of the chain when taking measurements in the field. He would accompany the engineer carrying the needed paraphernalia. He is selected for agility, knowledge of measurements and of measuring. He has to be active, alert and helpful at all times. Chainman Sirisena, however, had none of those qualities. On the contrary, he had some difficulty in walking due to cracks in his heels. He walked with a limp and with difficulty. This was my first experience with him. He wasn’t physically suited for a journey replete with unknown risks.. He had forgotten to bring along the measuring devices he was given the previous day! The Inspector had brought his measuring devices with which I was able to get on with the work.

Having completed the inspection of the sleepers on offer, we retired to the wadiya for the day. The forest officer had arranged with their contractor to prepare lunch. It was almost evening by then. We all partook of a meal that would cover dinner as well. There were pieces of make shift furniture done with scantlings coming off the conversion of timber to sleepers. We had to be satisfied with the few camp cots available in the wadiya to sleep on. A camp fire burned just outside the hut throughout the night while the contractor’s men took turns keeping watch.

Until the late eighties when we set up the concrete sleeper plant in railway premises in collaboration with a firm of international repute, the main supplier of sleepers to the railways was the Forest Department. That was a period when timber was being very liberally used for sleepers, for furniture and house construction. As new entrants to the railways we were somewhat surprised when we saw sleepers cut from even species such as teak, satin, palu and milla coming off the track after their effective life was over. These species, which are now special class, have almost completely disappeared from use even for furniture. The sleepers offered on our inspection at Nilgala were hardwoods such as milla and palu and softwoods such as hora, kolong and kumbuk to be used after creosote impregnation. How many tons of carbon dioxide would we have released to the atmosphere by raping forests in this manner?

If we were to quantify the number of trees that would have been sacrificed to maintain the railway tracks over a forty year period up to the late nineteen eighties, it would top 40x125,000x5 cu.ft. = 25 million cu ft. which would approximate to five million trees. Could such damage to the environment be ever recovered with no tangible steps being taken on reforestation? According to environment gurus of the scientific community in some developed countries who are crunching numbers it appears that it takes about 128 trees over a a100 year period to erase the yearly CO2 foot print from the atmosphere. With the liberal use of motor vehicles on our roads, Sri Lanka will no doubt qualify for a place at the top of the list of countries contributing to global warming.

We had to cover several more sites the next morning. As we prepared ourselves for the day, the fact that no one had a weapon bothered me. How much can we depend on the forest officer and his mantras? After a breakfast of bread purchased the previous day with some pol sambol, we set out for the continuation of the inspections. All the stacks of sleepers not being in one location, we had to move from one to another. They were too far apart as well as risky to walk to and we used the jeep where feasible.. We had finished our work at the third such location and were in the jeep moving some distance away in a new direction. Having stopped the jeep having driven as far as possible, we got off and began to walk along a foot path through overgrown shrubs. This area looked more densely grown than any of the previous sites we had already completed. A strange feeling of fear engulfed me. I asked the forest officer how far the stacks were from the jeep. Was it safe to walk in the manner we did?

He said it was less than a quarter of a mile. There was no need to worry. He was quite used to this forest life. He will not allow our lives to be in danger even for a minute. I saw no reason to disbelieve him. We moved on.

There was stark silence as we walked. We had hardly walked a hundred yards from where the jeep was parked along a winding foot path. One in the party made a gesture that seemingly spelled danger. This made all of us look in the direction of a massive elephant, her baby standing besides her, not more than a fifty feet away from where we stood. The mother- that was how we identified the full grown animal- having seen us stop- took a few steps from where she first stood on to the foot path and was now advancing towards us, ears spread out and her trunk raised.

I was the least experienced of the lot in this type of situation. I was depending very much on the ability of the forest officer to provide us protection. I could do nothing but hold on to the person next to me- he was the limping and physically unfit chainman of mine who I saw from the corner of my eye. The next moment he shuffled out of my reach and was running for dear life on his toes as his heels were split. I too turned back to find to my astonishment the forest officer was the first to flee. And in his mad scramble he had lost one of his slippers. All of us were running now except one member of our group, the contractor. He had not budged from where we first stopped. Standing there fearlessly, he was hooting at the approaching animal as loud as he could with all his might, mixing it with some mutterings. Whilst running we too began to hoot in unison with him. We didn’t know at whom we were hooting and why it was done. It may have been a life saving human reflex. We reached the jeep and jumped in. The contractor had stopped hooting. We looked in his direction relieved because of the distance between the jeep and the animal. The elephant was gone. The contractor beckoned us.

"Come sir, there is nothing to fear now. They are all gone. Did you see that there was a whole herd of them, many more than just the mother and baby?" He was now in complete control. We had to believe him as there was no one else to shed any light on what exactly happened. He continued, "On seeing us the rest of the herd hid themselves leaving the mother and the baby. It was because she was left alone with the baby that she turned on us, more to provide protection to the baby."

Could we blame her in her attempt to protect her young? Having encroached into their territory?

When everything returned to normal and I had gathered enough courage to break my stony silence, I asked the contractor

"What is the magic behind your method of stopping a raging elephant in the manner you did? Was it hooting alone or was there something else? You surely must be meeting them quite often in the midst of your work?"

"Believe it or not, mahattaya, this sort of thing rarely happens. This is Vishnu adaviya. I never kill an animal for food nor do I allow anyone else to do so. Unfortunately, this forest officer who should have known better wanted a live fowl that he had brought yesterday killed here in the wadiya. I was compelled to allow him for the sake of you all- the visitors. It must have been killed this morning in preparation for today’s lunch. I have no doubt that this incident coincided with the killing of the fowl in the wadiya. That had angered God Vishnu. It was my prayer on behalf of us to God Vishnu that saved the situation from sure disaster. May I therefore suggest to you that we desist from partaking of that dish at lunch? "