Kerala is the land of elephants. It is no wonder watching a tusker walking along a busy street of Kochi –the most populated city in the state–usually with one man on the back and another in front of the animal carrying a spear like piece of equipment. This is the only place in the world that reports at least 50 deaths caused by elephants every year. The figures have been going up considerably every year as the brutality of mahouts crosses the limits.
It is estimated that in Kerala, individuals keep more than 750 elephants domestically.
They are used for various functions such as pulling logs, temple festivals, circuses, carnivals and so on. According to the state official report, out of 56 people who were killed in Kerala by elephants in the year 2008, except two, all were mahouts.
In the past, only affluent families used to keep elephants, and that was not at all for profit.
Each and every member of those families had an emotional attachment with the animals, and vise versa. They used to care and feed those giants the way the mums do to their children.
But today elephants have become the victims of humans’ commercial interests. Prodding is a method of poking the animal at the very sensitive points of their body with an iron rod molded with a hook at the one end. There are a total of 107 of such points. The elephants keep the vengeance forever or until the death of the enemy. Usually they attack humans at times of "musth" which is a psychological phenomenon caused by sexual suppression in male elephants.
Stories of Elephants.
There are many stories related to the incidents in which elephants are involved. A recent incident I read in the newspaper happened on the highway from Kochi to Kottayam. A delivery van hit a tusker on the highway and escaped. The tusker writhed in pain but started chasing the direction in which the van had disappeared. The mahout tried his best to control the animal but he failed. After fleeing non-stop for 11 kilometers, the elephant saw the yellow-colored van. The driver was unloading supplies to a department store, and could not notice the giant advancing. The animal roared and picked the van with his tusks and rolled it upside down. The driver was lucky enough to slide in to shop. The tusker stamped the van into an ugly flat metal scrap.
Another heart-touching story was heard from a village in the suburbs of Thrissur known as the cultural city of Kerala. Here a tusker in musth was running through a trench with the mahout on its back. The trench was too narrow for the tusker but it proceeded and encountered a woman 9 months pregnant. She was carrying an earthen pot full of water and was surprised to see the giant tusker in front of her. Astonishingly, the king stopped and slowly picked the pot and kept it on the hedge and did the same with the woman using his trunk. The frightened lady soon gave birth to a child. No one in my land wants to believe that elephants kill people without reasons. Still, I don’t want to have a ride on an elephant – not just because of fear, but I don’t want to the give any animals the trouble of carrying me.
