Indian Elephants

You might think that we would be accustomed to the

fact of wildlfe in our back yard, so to speak, after years of being thrilled by the sight of moose near our house in Anchorage. And yet, when it comes to elephants, I somehow think of them in the wild only in Africa. As the great subcontinent of India broke free from Africa and slammed up against the southern margin of Asia, the elephants of my mind became tamed and domesticated, painted bright colors, adorned with bells and tassels, and fitted with wobbling saddles and parasoled platforms upon which the Rajs and Ranis and their soldiers and minions rode.It came as a huge surprise one day, near Munnar, when we stopped by the roadside along with a half dozen other vehicles and

got out to see a group of five wild elephants grazing in a sunny green opening of the jungle. They ambled slowly through the long grass, swaying their trunks, flapping their ears, and generally ignoring the small crowd of onlookers. The next day we saw two adults and a calf, and later that evening, two adults alongside the road. I felt it was quite an unanticipated treat.

Later that first day of elephant sighting, we stopped beside the road at a spot where tourists can take an elephant ride. Twyla had cautioned us against these to some degree, on the basis of captive elephants being treated poorly by some owners. This elephant was tied beside the road awaiting his next riders. The little girl who was part of our tour group declined her parents’ offer of a ride, but she did want to feed the beast, so her father bough a bunch

of bananas and we watched as that huge, serpentine appendage swung forward, inhaling noisily to scent-locate the fruit, and then grasped it gently with the tip of the trunk and guided it into its mouth. No chewing, just one big swallow and it was gone, down the hatch.

The tip of an elephant trunk is a marvelous thing to behold. Face on, it looks like a mouth with rubbery lips, but the flat surface just inside the end has two nares, or nostrils, resembling the snout of a pig. From the nostrils emanates the breathy sound of inhalation to locate the food; and the prehensile edge of the trunk’s tip grasps it and swings it down

into its mouth, proper. When pulling up grass or stripping leaves from a tree branch, the great trunk curls around the clump, or the branch, and the tip of the trunk does the finer work of breaking off the stems.This huge beast is remarkably dextrous with the tip of its nose!

Standing beside this large animal and examining it freely, as we were, we were struck by the presence of large bristles covering the whole upper trunk and forehead. The eye was virtually shrouded in thick lashes. When we leaned toward the animal to feel its bristles, it stepped back and away with a bit of

alarm. We had crossed some invisible boundary between the human and the elephant, the wild and the domestic. While it was apparently accustomed, or at least resigned, to people clambering up onto the platform perched on its back, it was shy of being touched on the face by even a tiny 4year-old’s hand.

We have seen domesticated elephants in various Indian locales, most numerously in Rajasthan where they are cajoled by keepers into providing rides for tourists. There is a never-ending line of elephants climbing the long hairpinned road up to the Amber Palace in Amer, each one them to plod back down the road after its passengers disembark onto a tall purpose-built wall at the Palace entrance. These elephants are often brightly painted on the face and trunk, very decorative, and some have been trained to perform tricks such as lifting their foot in a “handshake”, or swinging their trunk dramatically.Those who ride them are clearly delighted, if somewhat jostled by the time they reach their destination.

Historically, elephants were used as mounts in warefare, and were caused to fight among themselves or with predators such as tigers, for the amusement of the kings. They give the appearance of docile, slow, mild-tempered beasts most of the time in captivity, and I suppose, like other domesticated species, are generally resigned to their captive life.

They live for decades and provide a lot of labor and income to those who own them. We were astonished one eveing in Jaipur, well past sunset, to see a painted-faced elephant ambling along a busy street in the stream of traffic, ridden by a man who sat on its neck, making the 11-kilometer trek “home” presumably after a similar commute to the Amber Palace in the morning and countless trips up and down the long sloping roadway to the entrance. The duo stopped to allow us to take photos and then continued along amidst the honking and swerving traffic.


 
 



















On our last day in Munnar, Dean and I took a walk out through the lovely tea plantation near our hotel, and in the course of it, we passed through two small villages consisting of housing provided for the plantation’s laborers. In the first, we were told by a young man that elephants had come into the village the prior evening. Local residents in elephant territory in India have a healthy fear of, and respect for, elephants and the damage they can wreak. As we ascended to the second laborers’ village, a small group of women started chattering to us shrilly in Malayam, and we heard the word “Ana” again and again. We had visited a mountain several days before, shaped like an elephant and called AnaMurti, so we knew the meaning of the word. They would not allow us to procede up a pathway toward a small lake, but pointed us toward our hotel. A young man explained that everyone was agitated by the previous night’s elephant visit, and he showed us several banana trees which had been torn up and trampled by the invaders. A few metres later, we came upon a huge pile of fresh elephant dung and the remains of a stalk of bananas. Clearly the elephants had been on a rampage, and we were reminded of why the local residents were wary of the beasts.

The elephant is a image seen everywhere in India. Perhaps the most endearing amongst the myriad of Hindu gods is Ganesh, who form is essentially human except that he has four arms and an elephant’s head.
He is frequently the featured benevolent god of household or shop shrines, but also in mid-sized road sized shrines and temples, and is known to remove obstacles for those who honor him. Twyla presented us each with a small metal-cast Ganesh upon our arrival in India as part of our “India survival travellers’ kit”. So far, any obstacles have been minor, so we think it is working! Beautiful brass elephants from tiny to huge, lovely dark wood carvings of decorated elephants, carved stone temple statuary, fabric designs both traditional and modern, tea cosies, incense burners, jewelery, and more; all can be found in India. But none can beat the fabulous treat of seeing them in the wild, earls flapping and untethered. Objects of fear and adoration, these great beings are revered, worked and abused, and with hope, they will continue to exist in the wild against all odds.