Dawn of compassion

He lowered his rifle, still unable to take his eyes off the splendid stag

Norman Cole, my Scottish boss in Munnar in the 1960s, was a man of few words. However, he could be expansive when in a good mood. Once while travelling together in his jeep he narrated this story.

In the 1950s, Munnar’s British tea planters sometimes spent the Christmas holidays in Eravikulam, which bordered their tea estates, either trophy-hunting or trout-fishing. Eravikulam then was not a national park as it is now. It was a wildlife preserve belonging to James Finlay and Company, a Scottish tea major who owned most of the tea gardens in Munnar too.

To shoot a stag with record-sized antlers was the cherished dream of most hunters then. The trophy would be sent to Van Ingen and Van Ingen, the well-known taxidermists in Bangalore, to be mounted for display in their bungalows. Many of these relics can still be seen in Munnar’s tea museum.

A keen hunter, Cole once decided to try his luck during Christmas 1954. Intending to camp from December 24 to 26 in the log cabin deep in the heart of Eravikulam, he carried the required provisions for himself and three tribal guides.

At the crack of dawn on December 25, Cole set out with his rifle. Soon he spotted a small herd of sambar deer grazing placidly in a valley. Through his binoculars, he noticed there was an exceptionally large stag among them. Its coat was almost greyish black, an indication of its age, and its magnificently branching antlers, he surmised, measured well over 40 inches – a record ‘head’ that was eminently shootable, he decided. Crawling, Cole began to stalk the stag, creeping closer and closer through the waist-high grass carpeting the hillside. When he was about 80 yards from his unsuspecting quarry, he paused behind a boulder to regain his breath.

Then, pulse racing, Cole trained his rifle on the stag’s bristly shoulder glistening in the rising sun. He squinted down the sights, his forefinger curled lightly around the trigger. That was as far as he got – for some indefinable force made him hold his fire. He just stood there, mesmerized by the stag’s air of regality.

Slowly Cole lowered his rifle, unable to take his eyes off the splendid stag. It was the day of Christmas, he reminded himself a trifle ruefully, which heralds peace and goodwill. The giant stag must be spared, he decided magnanimously, even if it meant losing the chance of a lifetime. Compassion had triumphed over blood-lust.