(49 minutes listening length, published April 28, 2025)

The intimacy of reading a book to a child has achieved its milestone in this Audio Book of Viku and the Elephant, an adventure story from the jungle of India. In this story a boy, Viku, becomes a friend of a young elephant named Haatee when he saves it from a snake. Haatee communicates with only two sounds – a happy trumpet or a sad cry – but Viku understands Haatee perfectly. Their many adventures unfold quickly. In one story, ivory poachers take Viku hostage and ask him to show them where elephant tusks are hidden in the jungle. The poachers threaten to kill Haatee if Viku doesn’t help them. Although frightened, Viku and Haatee manage to outsmart the ivory poachers with an ingenious plan. Can you imagine how they did that? This gem of a story grew out of a fable the author told his own children when they were small. They would ask to hear it again and again. Now they can do that by just clicking on the Audio Book. And surely a child will quickly lose in the forests and cultures of India, the book coming so vivid to him or her.

In the words of Librarian Susan Seefeldt, “Whereas Horton, Dumbo, and Babar (lovable as they may be) are elephants one might want to befriend, one does not encounter them in their natural habitats. This heightens the vicarious experience of the reader.”

The print copy has 100% 5 star ratings.

You can get the book from Audible.com or Amazon.com

Viku and the Elephant Audiobook | Free with trial

https://tinyurl.com/3s35vntr

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In Sacred River, Jagdish, a laborer-farmer from a remote village, Sitamarhi, in India went on a pilgrimage that concluded at the Gangotri temple in the Himalayas, where other characters from the novel also converged. I describe a little, but mostly show by pictures, his life journey from Sitamarhi to  Haridwar, Gateway to God, his last stop before Gangotri.

His village:

When Jagdish came into this world, Sitamarhi was a quiet little place. No passenger trains passed through town and bullock carts were the main form of transportation. Located on the Gangetic Plain, the land was fertile, and the elevation of the area nowhere exceeded 200 feet above sea level. The Bagmati River, a tributary of the Ganges River, ran through Sitamarhi; it was the creator and destroyer of the place. It made Sitamarhi beautiful and serene—a flat green farm-country as far as the eye could see. Large trees grew all around, especially fruit trees—mango, jackfruit, and guava—and almost every house had a grove of banana plants. Only dirt roads, wide enough for a bullock cart, and straw-roofed mud huts broke the green landscape.

The green village where everyone worked just to survive

Sitamarhi was green all around because of fertile soil brought down by the rivers and monsoon rains. This made the villagers predominantly farmers and farm laborers. Formal education was not important in Jagdish’s time, and they lived a meager life. When Jagdish worked in farms, he got paid in grain. The villagers walked everywhere on dirt roads and brick paths. Most of them did not have carts or animals to pull carts and carried their burdens on their heads for miles. The market was only a few small hut-like houses. The center of the village, a few miles away, always looked busy because that was the place people went for everything.

His birth:

The day Jagdish was born on January 15, 1939, a severe earthquake occurred, and that was how he got his name, Jagdish, the Lord of the world, because as a defenseless baby, only the great Lord could survive such a calamity. The earthquake was so bad that even Gandhi visited the area to comfort people.

His life:

His father built a one-room house, but they barely had enough to eat; there was no luxury in their day-to-day living. They didn’t even have enough kerosene oil for the hurricane lamp to provide Jagdish light to study at night. Jagdish spent an uneventful youth. Life was mundane, but he did not endure severe hardship.

“If you live a good, moral life,” his father had often told him, “God will give you a better lot in your next birth.” This belief in God had carried him and his father through life. Only, he lamented, his father’s great wish for a pilgrimage hadn’t come true. His father had told him about so many places! Yet his father could never afford to leave Sitamarhi. Would the same thing happen to him as well?

His father died suddenly when he was only sixteen and Jagdish became a farm laborer. He got married two years later, bought a piece of land with the dowry money, and, in a spirit of ‘now or never,’ started growing vegetables. A son was born, the only joy of Jagdish and his wife.

Jagdish worked hard on his piece of land

Then came the devastating flood that destroyed his dream of life as an independent farmer.

His crop failed, ruining him and he became a bonded laborer to the rich man of the area.

Many years later, he received some money from the government and started on a journey to fulfill his lifelong desire for a pilgrimage to the holy lands of India.

Haridwar:

Immediately after reaching Haridwar, the holy city, Jagdish saw a Shiva statue in front of the train station, blessing travelers as they hurried in and out.

A snake coiled around his neck. A circular flower garden surrounded the statue and a sign, hung on the low metal fence, said “Northern Train Station,” but he could not read it. The blue Shiva was so beautiful! Jagdish had never seen such a huge and gorgeous Shiva. Devotion welled up within him, and tears came to his eyes. “I’m in front of God in the holy land!” He sat down on the cement pavement and folded his hands in prayer.

Shiva statue at the Haridwar train station. Photo credit: everydayindia – compute.info

Then he walked along the only road to the sacred river.

The road was straight with buildings chock-a-block on both sides. It reminded him of crowded Old Delhi where he had been a few hours before. Saris and other cloth hung from balconies to dry. Signs, which he couldn’t read, hung on ground floor stores, advertising ‘clean and cheap’ rooms above. Several restaurants had pictures of various food items—cooked in both north and south Indian styles.

Temples on the river:

As he reached the river, a panoramic view opened up before him.

He walked to the broad cement bank of the river and looked across. The opposite bank was cemented as well and there were many people there. The stream was about 100 feet wide, but the current of the muddy brown water was so strong that a chain was fastened securely along the riverbank in case someone fell in. More chains lay across the river under the bridge from one bank to the other.

(Wikimedia photo)

This is the holiest place in Haridwar where pilgrims bathe in the sacred Ganges River to wash away their sins.  Small flower boats made with large leaves are floated down the fast-moving river as a part of pilgrim’s worship service. Lighted candles burn in the centers of the flower boats.

As Jagdish stood on the bridge over the river, the sun disappeared behind the buildings. Men and women crowded a small space under a white clock tower on the opposite bank. The time for Maha Aarti was near. More men and women came and lined up along the banks and on the bridge. Many sat on the bank and swung their feet in the water. Soon it became dark and Jagdish couldn’t distinguish the faces under the tower. People started to release leaf boats on the water. The lights of tiny candles and oil lamps on the boats glowed as they traveled down the river. Suddenly, conch shells and bells started to sound from the surrounding temples and from the tower. Then small, lighted leaf boats flooded the river—all glittering in the dark, bobbing up and down and moving with the current. A lighted river flowing toward the sea. Jagdish loved the scene. He heard the Aarti song starting in the distance. Everyone joined in the chorus. Jagdish could not help but sing along and the devotional chorus roared up toward the heavens, lifting everyone’s spirits together.

Jagdish finally made the pilgrimage that his father longed for, but could never achieve. He spent seven blissful days in Haridwar, and then boarded a bus toward Gangotri.

If you wish to buy a copy of the novel Sacred River: A Himalayan Journey, please click here.

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Author’s blog on ‘What inspired me to write the novel Sacred River: A Himalayan Journey‘

by Debu Majumdar

In 1994 I went on a trip to India with my family to visit my brothers, sisters and friends and decided to do something special—go to the source of the Ganges River. If you grow up in India, especially in the Gangetic plane, you know how sacred the river is. Outsiders, especially those from the West, only see the polluted water; they don’t have the eyes to see beyond as they didn’t grow up with her mythological origin. In other words, they are not aware of Goddess Ganga. Many drink her water every day, bathe in the morning – even in winter’s cold – to earn merit, put her water in a dying person’s mouth, and burn their dead on her banks, pushing the ashes into the water to hasten a heavenward journey. I grew up in Calcutta near the end of the river’s journey. A trip to the Ganges River has always been a pleasure for the scenery and the sublime feeling that comes to you. Important pilgrimages are on her banks: Benaras, Haridwar, Rishikesh, Gangotri. Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, to go to the source in the Himalayas where the river originates? Why had no one in my family, or no one I knew, gone there or even conceived the idea of going there? Because until recently that was a dangerous proposition; in the old days, the roads were poor or non-existent and many had died on pilgrimages. But the place called me as the adventure of my lifetime, especially when I had not been adventure-oriented in my student days. I was a good student and good students in India are not much engaged anything else but studies! Living in Idaho for several years, camping with Boys Scouts, and hiking in Teton mountains have generated a spirit of adventure in me. So, my family and I decided it was time to make an ‘expedition’ to reach the source of the Ganges River.

It was a long series of flights from Idaho Falls to New Delhi, and then on to Gangotri (10,600 ft.) by car. This is as far as one can go by automobile; the Himalayan wilderness exists beyond this. We had to hike 18 KM to reach the Ganrotri glacier from which the Sacred River begins her journey. Our goal was first to hike 14 Km to Bhojbasa (12,385 ft., 3775 m) and spend a night there before hiking to the glacier (13,200 ft., 4255m).

We reached Bhojbasa in late afternoon after a strenuous hike in the scorching sun. The source of the river in Gaumukh, was still 4 Km away. But what a place it was! All my tiredness suddenly vanished.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Shivling by Anirban Biswas

A clear blue sky hung above and ice-covered peaks of Shivling and Bhagirath mountains towered above us. The river was a little distance away, and there was no sound – silence except for occasional cries of birds. You gaze at the scenery spellbound; you are taken to another world and time freezes. Standing there, surrounded by the mystical scenery, I realized it was in places like this that the ancient rishis in India found the meaning of god, the Brahman; they saw that Brahman was everywhere in nature and inside all beings—Brahman was all pervading. Realization of this was the truth of life.

Photo credit: Bhagirath Mountain from Bhojbasa by Wikimapia.org

And this cannot be realized until one comes to a place like this; only then can one understand what the ancient sages told us in the Vedas and the Upanishads. I wanted to tell this to everyone. I became convinced I had to write about this. But who would read this and where? Then I thought that I would write a novel where the protagonist would come to this beautiful, yet mystical place from America. Through him I can express what I found there.

To buy Sacred River: A Himalayan Journey, please click here.

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This story is from the novel Night Jasmine Tree by Debu Majumdar.

When I was eight or nine years old, a Bohurupee came to our house. He was the best Bohurupee I’d ever seen. They went from door to door and performed many tricks. This Bohurupee had very colorful makeup on his face, like what the clowns wear here, but a very different design — more like a Native American dancer. And he had rough, long black hair. When he first came to the courtyard, he stood silently and moved his head from side to side without moving his shoulders, like the dancers do in India, and his enormous eyes moved from one side to the other. I was the first to look out the window and notice him. ‘A Bohurupee! A Bohurupee!’ I went around shouting. My sisters immediately came running toward him.

My older sister waved her hands and cried, ‘Show us a magic,’ and we all repeated in a chorus, ‘show us a magic, show us a magic.’

A cousin was visiting us then from the city. Her name was Chinta. She had never seen a Bohurupee. At first she was scared, but soon she also joined in our frenzy.

The Bohurupee played with us and chased us around the courtyard. He then gave me a peacock feather from the sleeve of his shirt. Just like that. He then gave Chinta a small rubber ball that came out of my ear. She laughed and laughed, and her curly black hair swung haphazardly around her shoulders. She was slightly darker than my sisters, but she had deer-like long eyes, and they glittered in excitement.

Chinta asked, ‘Can you give me a doll?’

The Bohurupee rolled his eyes and moved his hands and body in a rhythmic fashion, and then he took Chinta’s hand and closed her palm. When he let her hand go, she opened it, revealing a bonbon! She screamed in excitement.

The Bohurupee gave each child a toffee. And those came out of his hair. Chinta wanted one more and he gave her another toffee — from the air! Chinta shrieked, ‘This is the best part of my visit.’

The Bohurupee then performed a dance for the adults. It looked like a combination of tribal and folk dances. His hands moved up and down around his body, fingers coming together in different and beautiful forms. His feet tapped on the ground in a rhythmic beat. Sometimes he put his thumb and forefinger together around his eyes, and his head moved from one side of his shoulder to the other. How gracefully he glided around the courtyard.

Then suddenly Chinta started to cry, saying, ‘Where is my bracelet? I can’t find it.’ Her face became sad, and tears ran down her cheeks.”

Bracelets are made of 22-karot gold in India. They are very valuable. People buy gold for girls in India. It is their way of saving money for them. So as soon as Chinta said the bracelet was missing, my mother came over and questioned her.

‘When did you wear it last?’ she asked Chinta.

‘I was wearing it all the time. Just now, as I was playing.’

This worried every one, and the adults gathered around Chinta. The Bohurupee stopped his act and everyone searched the house, but the bracelet was nowhere to be found. We also went to look at the places where we had played that day. Soon suspicion started to grow around the Bohurupee. Had he played a trick on her? Had he taken the bracelet from the naïve, city girl?

‘I gave her the bracelet,’ my mother lamented, ‘now it’s lost because of the Bohurupee.’

My father mumbled, ‘We were all watching him, how could he take it?’

‘Everything is possible,’ my youngest uncle stated.

Soon heated discussions started inside the house. I didn’t understand everything that was going on, but I remember that my uncles were saying the Bohurupee couldn’t be trusted. He was a magician. He could easily fool the girl.

The Bohurupee finally said that he must move on. Then my youngest uncle told him he would give him good money if he returned the bracelet.

‘But I don’t know where her bracelet is,’ he replied.

‘You are a magician,’ my uncle told him. ‘You could easily take it from her hand.’ My uncle’s face became darker.

‘Sir, I am a performer,’ the Bohurupee told my uncle, ‘I don’t take things from children.’

‘I’ve seen many performers,’ my uncle retorted in a stern voice. ‘Temptation is hard to resist.’

‘Please trust me,’ the Bohurupee told everyone, ‘I love doing my act. I am not a thief.’ But everyone ignored his words and kept on discussing what they could do.

The Bohurupees are poor. They earn only a little by going from village to village and performing their act. He could have easily taken her bracelet. And he would be gone and no one would know where he came from or where he went. The fascinating thing is that just when we had forgotten them, forgotten that Bohurupees even existed, they would suddenly show up. That was the fun part of it. But even now I have no idea who the Bohurupees really were or where they lived.

I was sad that Chinta had lost her bracelet. I stood near the mango tree in the courtyard and saw how the grownups accused the Bohurupee.

It started to get dark and the Bohurupee said he should leave. But my uncle said, ‘You can’t go until you give back the bracelet.’

‘Honestly, I haven’t taken it,’ the Bohurupee pleaded. He folded his hands in prayerful submission and bowed. ‘Please trust me; I have no idea where the bracelet is.’

‘We’ll call the police then,’ someone from the house shouted.

‘If we give him a good beating, he’ll give it back,’ my older uncle said.

Chinta started to cry loudly for the bracelet. I moved near the veranda where my sisters were. We were scared and stood very close to each other as a group, frozen.

No one knew what to do really, but the grownups were convinced that the Bohurupee had taken it. Neighbors heard the commotions from our house and came over one by one. Soon a crowd formed. No one knew the Bohurupee, so no one said anything good about him. Everyone was suspicious of him.

Then my father suggested they search him. Two strong men from the village grabbed him and said, ‘We must search you.’

The Bohurupee was frightened and said, ‘Please, I have never taken anything from a child. Don’t destroy the only costume I have.’

They pulled off his costume and searched him. He was a middle-aged, thin man. In the dim light of the lanterns, the shadows of people moved around him menacingly. I still remember his bony face, eyes downcast — scared and helpless.

I saw tears running down the cheeks of my older sister. I felt a lump on my throat. We huddled together silently, frightened by what was going on. Chinta sobbed on Grandma’s shoulders while she tried to comfort her.

The two men searched his costume thoroughly, each pocket and each fold. They found many little items, toys and candies, but no bracelet. Finally one man pushed him hard; he almost fell down. ‘Go, get out of here,’ he shouted, ‘before we beat you up.’ A murmur arose from the crowd. The Bohurupee picked up his clothes and a few other items from the ground and walked away from the courtyard. The men followed him and chased him out of the village, some shouting at him, ‘A Thief!’ Some shouted, ‘Never come back here.’

That’s the last time I saw a Bohurupee in my life.”

The commotion continued in the house for some time, but no one knew what happened to the bracelet or had an idea how they could recover it. All were sad. Chinta went to bed crying. The adults stayed up talking about the event, saying they should have handed the Bohurupee over to the police. I was petrified by the incident, but fell asleep. I don’t remember if I ate dinner or not.

Chinta was the first to get up the next morning. She awakened me and said, ‘Let’s go for a walk near the farmer’s canal.’ She was jolly, and showed no trace of the tribulations of the night before. It was clear to me she had forgotten the Bohurupee, but I didn’t. I was still sad. The sun was barely up and the sky white-blue with a layer of pink near the horizon. If the bracelet were not lost, I’d have enthusiastically jumped out of bed to run around with Chinta. But I came out reluctantly.

We passed the kitchen and saw the unwashed dishes from the night before. A crow pecked at a few grains of rice on a plate. As we stepped down from the veranda, Chinta stopped, as if she remembered something, and looked toward the far corner on the courtyard. There was a little playhouse behind a tree. It was made of loose bricks and worn-out planks. ‘I made that house yesterday,’ she said, and walked over to it. I followed her. There we saw on a handkerchief, a hairbrush, her pink ribbons, and the bracelet!

She picked up the bracelet. “Good, I found it.” She put it on and commanded, “Let’s run to the canal.”

She had no memory of the last night. I looked away from her to the empty courtyard, to the spot under the mango tree where I stood last night.

“Can a Bohurupee come here from India?” Raja asked, hugging and resting his head on grandpa’s chest. “I want to see one, Grandpa.”

“They exist only in villages in India,” he told him and looked away toward the backyard. The lush green garden shimmered in the heat of the afternoon sun. A red-breasted robin pecked on the lawn near the wisteria vine over the arched gate. The sun flashed on its red breast. Then a sound from the road drew his attention. A car full of children passed by, probably returning from a soccer game. Everything is so organized here, so driven by schedules of activities. How could a Bohurupee suddenly show up to entertain children and not create a great upheaval?

“When a Bohurupee came,” he told the children, “we always ran toward him and crowded around him. But we were also afraid of him.”

“Afraid?” DeeDee exclaimed, but her round, olive face betrayed her true feelings of pleasure. She loved hearing about grandpa’s life in India.

“You know, we were little and he was a stranger who could perform magic we had never seen before.”

Shankar glanced at the TV, remembering the fun he had when a Bohurupee showed up. The profession of Bohrupee must have vanished by now, he thought. They were a mystery and a surprise, and no one knew when one would appear. But they always returned, and came to their house, and always in the evening. He didn’t know if it was the same man or different Bohurupees who came on different occasions.

“Sometimes he chased us and scared us, but we always laughed and ran away. Sometimes he would even go inside our house, to our rooms, and do magic right there. He didn’t need a stage.”

Shankar looked out through the back window. The robin had pulled another worm from the same location. Its head bobbed two or three times and the worm was eaten up.

* * *

The story was published in Sahitya Sankalan 2010. You can read many such arresting stories in Night Jasmine Tree

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