Elephant Sense

He froze, trunk poised in mid-air, and looked straight at me. I turned around to see what had disturbed him. Nothing, except a mahout leaning lazily against the wall with a slight smile playing on his face. I turned back in time to see the brilliant shot I had just missed – molten afternoon light playing with the cloud of dust that the magnificent tusker had just sprayed over his back.

Not to be outdone, I raised my camera and focused once more. He froze again. From behind me, an unmistakable chuckle. “He’s posing for you”, the mahout explained, grinning at my puzzled expression. “He loves the attention, and wants to oblige”.

I looked at the elephant in disbelief, and noticed that he had even stopped swaying. I made a big show of handing over one of my cameras to a friend, discreetly stuffed the other into my jacket, and moved away. Maybe if I hid behind a wall or something…

No go. The sequences went something like this. Frame. Freeze. Sigh. Frame. Freeze. Chuckle from the mahout. Frame. Freeze. Guffaw from my friend. I gave up and took a picture of his magnificent tusks instead.

How many human beings he had studied, I wondered, and how much did he know about us…

We were in Coorg, at the Elephant Interaction Centre of the Dubare Wildlife Sanctuary. I was fascinated at how much interaction was possible, with opportunities for even getting into the water and giving a massive hind quarter a good scrub! But the highlight for me was watching the feeding.

Hungry after the bath, the elephants began queuing up to be fed almost half an hour before feeding time. One after the other they lumbered up, and immediately got into position, with trunk draped over the wall in a posture of infinite patience. Delicious smells wafted in the air, of ragi and jaggery. There was a definite pecking order, with the dominant males being fed the gigantic balls of ragi first.

My favourite, however, was the pregnant Mythili, a gentle giant with a two year calf next to her. Her mahout had his hands full feeding the mother and calf; every time he put a ball of ragi into Mythili’s open jaws, the little calf would send a snaking trunk in and wiggle out a sizeable portion! The mahout did everything he could think of to get her to swallow fast; cajoling, threatening, tricking…

Nothing worked. Indulgently, Mythili would hold her jaws slightly open to allow the calf to dribble out the food. “How do I ensure she gets the nutrition she needs,” despaired the mahout, “she has another baby growing inside her”. Back he went once more to the kitchen, distracted the calf and deftly sent a lump of jaggery down her throat. One down to the mahout. But Mythili won my heart.

We left Dubare without having seen any elephants in the wild. But it didn’t really matter.