Queen of the Elephants

Turns out I have now read all four of Mark Shand's books, most famously about elephants. This book Queen of Elephants follows the making of a documentary about travelling (again) in India by Elephant, this time accompanied by (or should I say accompanying) Parbati Barua, the foremost (only?) female elephant trainer in all India.

Somewhat in fun, Parbati is made out to be a hard taskmaster. Their elephant camp is referred to as the concentration camp, and she makes Shand work hard to for the privilege of riding on her elephant - he has to carry out all the hard work of fodder collection, washing, grooming etc for a short time before moving onto training under her as a mahout.

The journey takes place through a narrow corridor of jungle, flanked each side with tea plantations in (northern) West Bengal and Sikkum - in the knuckle of India between Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. The documentary, obviously, revolves around the loss of habitat and deforestation - in this area primarily due to the tea plantations, where the wild elephants cause problems and are regularly killed as a consequence.

It is a very easy read, it spells out it's message in simple terms, and, yes I suppose it is a pretty charming sort of a story. It is little different from Shand's other books, and an easy 3.5 stars, rounded down.