An exercise in Chivalry

Elephant Polo Championships? WTF Mate!

I thought I would be the only reporter at the World Championships of Elephant Polo, but I was scooped by some jackass from Playboy. Nonetheless, I consider it an important task to chronicle this event for The Fuck-It List, being that it was exactly the sort of postmodern fiasco I was directly seeking. So here goes:

When Hemingway said "there are only three true sports; Auto Racing, Bullfighting and Mountain Climbing. All the rest are children's games at which men play," he was definitely full of shit. A real man's game is elephant polo.

I enlisted the assistance of a Nepali friend of mine to journey to the outskirts of Royal Chitwan National Park, where we would catch the finale of this bizarre sport. We arrived a little late and our driver parks next to a long row of bicycles. Strangely, these are the only other vehicles aside from our Datsun with a statue of the many armed Vishnu glued to the dash. Apparently, people come from as many as eight miles away to watch the death-defying competition!

The game has already begun. We watch a pack of elephants lumber from one side of a square field demarcated with white chalk at the perimeter, chasing a tiny ball which white people swing at with sticks that must be about 12 feet long. The elephants shuffle over to the other corner of the field, and not very quickly I might add, after one guy successfully hits the ball. A loudspeaker announcer chronicles the action in a stuffy British accent. My companions and I ponder what is going on, but our different interpretations of the events remind me, ironically, of the parable of the blind men and the elephant. "I think he just scored a goal" says Eloise. "I think he just got scored on" says Rob, and we fight about it.

We are very unclear on who to root for. There is a USA team, but they were eliminated yesterday. Nearest I can tell, it's one Nepali team, the "Pukka Chukkas" versus another Nepali team, the "Tuskers." I burst into laughter when one elephant pauses to relieve himself. This takes quite awhile, and when the elephant is done, three men run onto the field with a stretcher like one would use to evacuate a wounded football player and scoop the giant turds away and off the field. Play continues as this operation is performed, since the turd scoopers (are they members of the "untouchables" caste?) will have plenty of time to move out of the way should the elephants chase the tiny ball and plod in their general direction.

The experience for me is a bit poignant because I can remember the exact situation wherein I last witnessed an elephant relieving himself. I was at the zoo with my father, in a time when the zoo was a very convenient and enjoyable Saturday activity, and thoughts of "are the animals happy in the zoo?" did not yet plague my seven-year-old brain. One of the elephants stops making noise or shuffling around to entertain the onlookers, and begins delivering what would remind anyone of military footage of a B-52 delivering it's payload over some civilian city proclaimed an enemy of America. "Pile it on there pal" my dad says, which is sufficiently hilarious for both my brother and myself to laugh in unison for the next 5 minutes, briefly forgetting that he put gum in my hair and he told on me and he did it first.

The elephants chase the polo ball and become entangled in one furious clump of 12-foot-long sticks swinging. One polo club breaks and someone rushes onto the field to replace it. The announcer notes that "this is the third broken stick in the last three minutes." This is because all of the elephants are now in one big stick swinging tussle, and no one is moving. Uneventfully, the game ends. We have no idea who won, our feelings of nationalism quelled by our disappointment in the American team who had lost 2 days earlier. I'm not surprised as it would be just as implausible for Americans to practice their sport with real elephants as for Jamaicans to practice on real ice. I find out later that they simulate elephant polo by riding atop their landrovers and swinging clubs.

We move in the general direction of the great waves of onlookers, thinking there must be some pomp and circumstance yet to be witnessed. It's the award ceremony where the British announcer guy is calling for "three cheers for Jim Edwards" who is the pith helmet wearing Brit who founded the sport, head of WEPA (World Elephant Polo Association), and owns "Tiger Tops" the prestigious hotel where many of the elephants are housed. They actually do the "hip-hip-hooray" three times, which conjures up another childhood memory—I won't say which one, and Jim Edwards, "the most chivalrous man on earth," comes out to give a speech. He gives out many awards, one to the reigning champions, the Scottish team who are led by their number one player, the Thirteenth Duke of Argyll. Of course all of this is hearsay because I can't see through the crowd.

All of this talk of chivalry inspires me to lift Eloise onto my shoulders so at least one of us can see. She says "there are signs. They say 'live with chivalry.' The elephants are lined up in a row. They seem to be giving some sort of prize." Seeing our genuine desire to be part of the action, our Nepali friend "Hup" suggests we muscle our way through the ropes and into the inner circle. After all, we're white—we'll get away with it.

We sit behind the New York team, recognizable by their metro-sexual style uniforms. So far, the ceremonies have lasted longer than the actual game. The "Master of the Royal House in Scotland" presents the "Golden Moment" award. I wish my brother was here. He'd say "golden moment? That's my favorite kind of porn." The award itself is a sort of trophy depicting a polo player atop an elephant, leaning aggressively off the side of the beast, as if at high speed, something we didn't see anyone doing. They give the Nepali team a prize for winning, but instead of a trophy, they give the team captain a goat, which he hoists into the air. He's stoked to have a goat, and I'm sure he wonders why the Brits in the background are chuckling in their restrained way.

The German woman seated next to me asks me to explain this word "chivalry." I try my best, not really understanding the concept very well myself. I try to tell her that it means "politeness" but to me there are extensive connotations of sexist behavior, the sort which women often appreciate, as if to say "yes, I like the chair scooted out for me and then pushed in once I have seated myself." I say "it's good manners, especially toward women" and I explain that the knights of the round table used to protect the queen and they had this code, and as I'm saying it, I can't recall how much of this "knowledge" I'm preaching is pure elephant shit.

The "New York Blues" as they're called, go up to the front to accept their "best dressed award." They look silly in their matching white pants, aviator shades, red ball caps and blue vests, but I can assume that this look was carefully planned. Compared to the pith-helmet guy they are the best dressed. "We couldn't go home if we didn't win this one," one of them leans over and says to me.

Lastly, they pay tribute to the "packies." I assume this is less a British slur for Pakistani and more an abbreviation for Pachyderm. Jim Edwards salutes the elephants with "ramro hati, dane baht" I think, which means "beautiful elephant, thank you." All of the elephants hoot or snort or whatever you call that noise they make. A host of zoo related memories once again churn through my elephant brain.

We shuffle over to the car, and I open the door for Eloise, having just learned the importance of chivalry and proud, by virtue of my skin color, to be part of a vast imperialistic tradition.