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magnificent fellow.“
    ‘Mr Captain, isn’t he rather big for our purpose?’
    ‘No, he is just right. Only we may have to starve him for a while.’
    ‘Will you be able to make him obedient?’
    ‘Of course,’said the other. ‘You will see, I’ll make him a star.’
    ‘It seems to me he is too heavy for our purpose.’
    ‘He is all right. He’ll become slim and agile. Leave it to me.’ Then he turned round and said to someone, ‘Pay off all the men who have helped us in trapping. Give them an extra tip, but make sure that their services are terminated. Keep the six men from our own staff, and they will take care of the business of wheeling this cage to the town. It may take four days, if drawn by bullocks. All along the way crowds will watch and follow; that will be an excellent advertisement for our circus.’
    My Master, later in my life, has mentioned hell, describing the conditions that would give one a feel of it. Now, recollecting the day of my trapping and the journey onward, I realize its meaning. The trap was narrow and I felt cribbed and cramped. I, who had lived a full and free life - stretching myself as I pleased, or burying myself in the jungle grass - now had to keep standing as the trap on wheels was drawn along. A pair of bullocks was yoked to it and the driver kept yelling and whipping them; the wheels rolled on rough ground, and I was jolted from side to side. I felt strangely uncomfortable to be moving without the use of my legs! First time experiencing locomotion. They had screened the trap with a lot of foliage, so that I might not see the bullocks or the driver; they had some irrational fear that if I saw them, I might want to eat them up. They forgot that the goat which was the bait was still in my company - although not alive.
    Through many villages and towns they took me. My captors walked along behind the cage. Now and then they stopped under a wayside tree and unyoked the bullocks to give them rest. At such times the front portion of the carriage rested on the ground, and the floor sloped forward and I kept sliding down, with the remains of the goat flowing over me. It was uncomfortable, and I had to roar out my displeasure. The noise I made scared the spectators surrounding my cage and sent them running. My guards broke into laughter and shouted at the crowd, ‘If you are so scared of the tiger locked up in the cage, what’ll you do if we open the door and let it out?’This was their way of joking. And then much talk, inevitable wherever human beings are gathered. For one used to the grand silence of the jungle, the noisy nature of humanity was distressing. In due course, I got used to it. When I imbibed my Master’s lessons, I realized that deep within I was not different from human beings, and I got into their habit myself and never had a moment’s silence or stillness of mind - I was either talking (in my own way, inaudibly) or listening, and thus became fully qualified to enter human society.
    After days, how many I didn’t know and could not reckon, we came to a stop. The sides of the cage were still screened with brambles and foliage and I had no idea where we were. I only heard, as usual, a lot of talk and shouting and counter-shouting, and much movement outside. Suddenly all the twigs and foliage screening the cage were torn away and I saw through the bars a new world such as I could never have imagined in my life - a stretch of land with no trees or rocks or long grass or bamboo clusters or lantana bushes or other undergrowth, but bare and clean ground as far as I could see, ending in what I learnt was a big tent surrounded by smaller tents and shacks, the whole ground swarming with bipeds. I had no notion that the earth contained so many human creatures. Naturally they stared and gaped and talked. I tried to head my way out by pushing, and hurt myself in the attempt.
    Now I saw a man with a long staff in hand standing close by, saying, ‘Want to get out? All right,