When The Elephant Gave Me A Chase : A Crazy Running Story

I am narrating this incident which took place many moons ago. I think it was in the year of 2015. I wrote this story back then and that is why it is written in present tense.

For context, this incident took place in Bagdogra. A sleepy little town of West Bengal and is the gateway to the North Eastern part of Bharat. This side of the country is rich with tea estates and elephants.

Anyways, back then I was still married. So any mention of the “wife” can be taken as the “ex-wife” in the present times!

Hope you enjoy this short story.

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My wife nowadays have started saying that I have lost it since the time I have registered for this 100k race called as Bhatti Lakes Ultra(look up my name in the results of 2015, 100km race category). Even my colleagues second her point of view. Her declaration is because once a week, mostly on Saturdays’, I wake up at 1 or 2 AM to start my long runs. It’s quite intense, for me, but insane for them, the non runners.

Now to the story. I had planned to do a 40 km, as per my training plan, on this Saturday. On Friday evening, we saw this wonderful movie called Drishyam. I wanted to go home as early as possible after the movie, to get my stuff like hydration pack and food supplies ready and sleep. However, my wife disagreed to the idea of going home. She wanted to eat out. But I won the argument. She understood my need for this long run. Predicament of the wife of an endurance athlete!

While going back, she started teasing my son saying that dad is going for a run early morning and what if he has an encounter with a wild elephant. Not realising the gravity of the situation, my son replied that dad should ride it then. Whatever happened to the love and care for parents! By the way, he is 4 years old.

We reached home and I started preparing my stuff and slept off by 10:30 PM. I woke up again at 1:20 AM. I am a slow runner, so keeping my regular pace in mind, I chose the starting time at 2 AM. I have to attend the office after the run too. Now you understand why I have been declared insane!

As punctual I am, I left home on time after kissing goodbye to my wife, who was still awake. She is a night owl. I started my regular loops of 6.6 km at a decent clip with the Runkeeper app(I didn’t have a GPS watch or Strava back then) calling out time and distance covered every 5 minutes.

I was merrily sipping water and running on the empty streets. The air was cool outside with the wind blowing gently. An ideal day to run, I thought. Now, there is a patch on the route after about 4.5 km to be exact, which is infested with dogs. But having rained few hours ago and being overcast, very few dogs were sitting out on the road. But you know there is always one dog in a pack who has an itch to bark. So, this one did and I had to start walking, keeping an ever watchful eye, even after crossing them. That dog kept growling at me.

After this patch, there comes a dark portion of the road which runs close to some residential quarters. There is another road which runs parallel to this one and goes through these quarters. These two roads are separated by some overgrown grass. I always sidestep to the one next to the quarters because the main road is frequented by elephants at night to crossover over to a jungle patch on the other side of the family quarters.

I had my mind on the dogs when I was entering this dark patch. I was about to crossover to the road, which goes by the family quarters, when suddenly I saw this giant male elephant.

It was all alone, munching on the tall grass, next to this main road. We momentarily saw each other and acknowledged our presence. Then he flapped his ears to charge, raised his trunk above his shiny white teeth and gave out the loudest roar I have ever heard. He was not more than 10 feet away from me!

It was the same way this elephant came charging at me.

I have never run 100 meters faster. I crossed over to the family quarter road and kept running. I looked back only after 400 meters or so. I saw the elephant walking about angrily on the road. He stopped chasing me after about 20 feet I suppose. He must have got disturbed by me while he was enjoying his veggies!

I stirred a small herd of cows, sitting in the family quarters area, when I sprinted through them. Also a group of dogs guarding the family quarters gave me a chase. But didn’t care because the elephant could have trampled and killed me and not these stringy dogs.

When we shifted to this place from Hyderabad last year, I was being told again and again that one can’t outrun an elephant on foot. So, when this guy roared and chased me, the only thought in my mind was that I am a dead man now! Why did I start running so early? Why do I love running?

Read : Pinky’s Ride Of A Lifetime – Kashmir To Kanyakumari

It happened so suddenly : spotting of elephant, his charge and my sprint got over in a matter of not more than 30 seconds but I kept thinking about it during the next 3 hours or so of my run. I thought of cancelling my run and going home to sleep.

But here came my EYE OF THE TIGER moment and I decided to continue running. Come hail, storm or elephant, I will continue running. However, I decided to cut short my loop from 6.6 km to 5 km, which avoided this particular patch of road.

Once, the sun started coming up, I resumed to run the route on which I encountered this male elephant, because people started moving about on it.

On my last loop I saw this guy moving in the tall bushes. It was about 400 meters from me, probably going to some place safe for the day, with a white crane on his top as his passenger.

So long buddy. Till we meet again.

What’s your scariest wild life encounter on the run or otherwise?