Chinna Thambi grunts and I jump. For a moment, I forget about the mammoth wooden enclosure that separates us. It’s called a kraal, and is used to tame wild elephants.
Dusk sets in at Varagaliar elephant camp deep within the Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR), near Pollachi in Tamil Nadu. It’s dinner time for the 25-year-old and he’s fed massive balls made of steamed ragi flour mixed with rice, green gram, some salt and jaggery . There are half-a-dozen Forest Department officials around, including V Ganesan, the Field Director of ATR. He enquires about the elephant’s condition with its mahout C Murugan; tea and bowls of sundal are passed around for us; another camp elephant, chains clinking at his feet, passes by; there’s friendly chit-chat... Chinna Thambi is watching.
He has every reason to loathe us. Who are we? Where have we brought him? Why is he not able to trundle to his heart’s content along the forest path? Where are the people and elephants he grew up with?
Here’s a little background: Chinna Thambi was tranquillised, caught, and brought to Varagaliar last month. He happened to raid crops by the Amaravati River near Udumalpet. In fact, he was translocated to the Anamalai forest range from Thadagam valley in January by the Forest Department, after mounting complaints about his habitual crop raiding. But he eventually found his way into sugarcane fields even in his new habitat.
Fans of Chinna Thambi staging a demonstration in Coimbatore against the proposed move to keep the elephant in captivity
Chinna Thambi’s recapture was the result of a Public Interest Litigation filed at the Madras High Court. The court passed an interim order that the Forest Department capture him. “This is the best option for the elephant,” says Ganesan. “It is semi-wild; it has lost 50% of its wild characteristics,” he adds. “This is because people provided him with food and he was psychologically comfortable in their company.” Ganesan feels that the people at Thadagam had tolerance for the elephant. “The elephant too has not hurt anyone so far.”
Popular pachyderm
Huge fan folowing Which explains the fan clubs. Chinna Thambi had a trending hashtag and a Facebook page with over 1.4K followers. Earlier this year, #savechinnathambi was all over social media and Coimbatore saw people coming together in protests, demanding that it not be captured and be sent back to Thadagam. There were placards, slogans, tears.
Although a wild elephant, Chinna Thambi did not grow up entirely in the wild. For over the last decade, he has had easy access to food at Thadagam, a village surrounded by the Western Ghats near Coimbatore. Brick kilns tempted him with plenty of water and he loved the palm pith that was used as fuel for baking bricks. Agricultural produce was a huge draw and the big guy had a field day, every day. He did earn some enemies — no one likes their crops being eaten by an uninvited guest. But, he also made friends; a lot of them.
- M Ananda Kumar, scientist, Nature Conservation Foundation, says that elephants are “engineers of the eco-system”. He explains: “They are seed dispersers. Forests without elephants have been observed to not have young saplings at all. This is because certain species disperse seeds only through elephants.” The animals are “phenomenal at adapting themselves to new ecological conditions and negotiating a problem.” Which explains the detours they take when their regular paths are taken over by concrete structures. They are in fact trying their best to modify their behaviour and find a solution, which lands them in trouble, he adds.
Among them is environmental photographer M Abraham Antony Raj, who spends all his free time in the Anaikatti hills near Coimbatore. “I named him Chinna Thambi in 2007,” recalls Abraham. “He was among the regulars I saw; I also named two others Periya Thambi and Vinayagan, often seen in Thadagam.” Abraham has taken hundreds of photos of Chinna Thambi, the last one being the photo he clicked when the elephant was captured in Thadagam. “I was standing very close to him when he was being tranquillised,” says Abraham. “His eyes fell on me. He recognised me.” Abraham didn’t sleep that night.
He remembers the first time he saw the elephant. “This was in 2007 at a place called Thanni Paarai near the Anuvavi Subramanyaswamy Temple.” Chinna Thambi was sprinkling water on himself at a waterbody. “The water was green; not the kind people would drink,” says Abraham. After a nice shower, the elephant walked over to a rock, lifted it, and drank from a spring under it. “I tried that water later and it tasted so sweet,” he adds. Chinna Thambi, it seems, knew his ‘home turf’ well. He knew exactly where to find food and water, and even gauged the people; by having them at nodding terms, he kept things pleasant.
What would have happened if the elephant had been released at its place of origin, as per popular demand? “It would’ve eventually gone back to its crop-raiding habit,” says Ganesan.
There are several theories surrounding events in the life of this star elephant; some are politically-coloured and some involve sand miners in Thadagam; and people who got him habituated to peanut barfi , bananas, jackfruit, and hand-feeding, without much thought about the dangers the practice posed to the elephant. At the kraal, the mammoth creature keeps extending his trunk for food whenever someone passes by.
Fans of the elephant can probably see him at Top Slip in a few months’ time. Once he’s tamed and trained, he will be allowed to roam the forests, under the supervision of a mahout. But he will perhaps have to be renamed, for he will not be the Chinna Thambi we know any more.
