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Chinna Thambi, Parvati, Sita: The elephants I’ve known

Oct 04, 2024 04:09 PM IST

A gentle giant who wouldn’t leave home; a little calf who loved candy; a playful pachyderm who died on her way to work - Mridula Ramesh writes on elephants she can’t forget.

He’s a social-media star with a devoted fan base.

Sita Lakshmi loved playing with water, bathing, eating fruit and leaves.
Sita Lakshmi loved playing with water, bathing, eating fruit and leaves.

Chinna Thambi, a bull elephant, was born in the Thadagam forest near Coimbatore more than two decades ago. This was prime elephant habitat once, but now houses hundreds of brick kilns. As these scoop out red soil, the land becomes impassable for pachyderms and unsuitable for cultivation. But the deep furrows collect rainfall, attracting elephants in the summer.

A few years ago, Chinna Thambi and his companion became crop raiders. But this bull elephant was gentle. People could approach him without fear of being attacked, and so they named him Chinna Thambi (Little Brother).

His gentleness and charm notwithstanding, farmers began to complain. The forest department decided to relocate him, and used kumki (captive) elephants and an earthmover to capture him. Chinna Thambi tried giving them the slip. He tried befriending the kumkis. But he was finally captured. With his trunk and tusks injured, he was transported to a forest 100 km away, fitted with a smart collar and released.

Within a week, he was back near his old haunts.

His gentle, friendly nature would be his undoing. He was unfazed by fireworks, noise and torchlight. He was joined by new elephant companions. He didn’t attack, but also didn’t spare crops. The farmers complained again, while others approached the courts and campaigned to defend him.

Experts were consulted and reasoned that it was only a matter of time before tragedy struck. So the forest department trapped Chinna Thambi again, and this time placed him in a kraal, a small wooden cage designed to break a wild elephant into submission.

Maya Angelou had it right.

“But a bird that stalks /

down his narrow cage /

can seldom see through /

his bars of rage /

his wings are clipped and /

his feet are tied /

so he opens his throat to sing.”

Today, Chinna Thambi is training to be a kumki elephant.

Still, unlike his feared predecessors, Chinna Thambi gently nudges his quarry and often befriends them, D Boominathan of the World Wide Fund for Nature-India (WWF-India) tells me. He is calm now, his trainer assured an interviewer on TV.

The chain around his leg tells another tale.

***

I have known elephants who spent their entire lives in captivity.

I have known Parvati for decades, from the time she first arrived, a naughty youngster, at the Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai. She loved peanut candy, and was adept at using her trunk to searching for it – no matter the occasion.

Once, decades ago, I saw her march at the head of a huge procession, with thousands of people surrounding two temple cars carrying the deities. To my horror (and later amusement), Parvati saw me, turned, came straight up to me and began rooting around in my bag looking for her candy, bringing the whole procession to a halt. I can still hear the crowd’s laughter.

***

Sita Lakshmi, on the other hand, entered and exited my life quickly. When I first met her, she was being transported for a function. She was dehydrated and near collapse.

We tended to her and ensured she was nursed back to health. We often saw her around after that, playing with water, bathing, eating fruit and leaves. This continued for about a year. Then I learnt that she had died, while being transported.

We must do better.

Each captive elephant’s life is different. But do their brushes with humans help sustain the cultural respect that keeps conflict in check? Indians are, going by statistics and field reports, exceptionally tolerant of elephants – far more so than any other country.

Our elephant toll as a result of human conflict is relatively low too; an elephant slain remains a matter of grief, as they remain widely loved and revered. How deep would this connection be, without elephants in our midst? What would the toll be, without that connection?

These are not thoughts we should be thinking. But they are data points we cannot ignore.

What will it take for us to do better?

As I watch Parvati play with a group of children, I wonder. When I see chained Chinna Thambi grazing in his camp, I wonder.

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