Nowhere have I seen so many shikar trophies as in Munnar — a legacy of the hill resort’s former British tea planters.Apparently, even the proverbially parsimonious Scotsman splurged on taxidermy. A mere photo of the hunter and his ‘kill’ was not considered enough. So trophies, carefully preserved and crated, were sent all the way to Van Ingens of Mysore, a Dutch firm of taxidermists then popular. Their workmanship is evident even now in these trophies, which have withstood the ravages of time. The Brits certainly loved to flaunt their trophies, using them innovatively — tiger and panther skins carpeted the floor, deer antlers were festooned with hats, hollowed elephant legs held umbrellas and walking sticks, gaur hoofs were fashioned into ashtrays, wild pig tushes adorned the bonnets of cars and jungle fowl hackle brightened up hatbands and trout flies. Once a planter’s wife imaginatively stuck scores of porcupine quills in a cushion to craft a spiky likeness of the rodent, winning the first prize in a handicrafts competition. And an eccentric planter reportedly used an elephant’s tasselled tail as a shaving brush! As a ten-year-old, I once accompanied an uncle to a British planter’s bungalow where I sat on a cylindrical-shaped stool, overawed by the fearsome trophies around me. The stool turned out to be an elephant’s foot complete with toenails! And near by stood a doleful-looking bear holding an ashtray.Until recently a magnificent pair of elephant tusks, each measuring over six feet, impressively flanked the fireplace in a local club before they were stolen. One of the pachyderm’s massive molars, however, still graces the mantelpiece. Another club displays the foot of a deer and a gaur as well as an array of wild boar tushes.Verging on ostentation, the Brits obviously regarded shikar trophies as prized mementoes of their hunting exploits.
