The elephant tamers of Anamalai Hills

For men from the Malasar tribal settlement, near Top Slip, taming wild elephants is a generational calling. From capturing the animal to gaining its trust, it is a laborious task, usually requiring several months and lots of resilience on the tamers’ part.

One of the first scents every child born in Kozhikamuthi, a Malasar tribal settlement, near Top Slip, located in a core area of the Anamalai Tiger Reserve, may experience is the smell of an elephant. Before getting onto a tricycle like most children, they get to sit on the back of the pachyderms at the camps of the Forest Department.

Men from the tribal settlement, now comprising 120 families, have been taming wild elephants for generations and their story of camaraderie and resilience continues.

“I sat on an elephant at the age of four or five. My brother was a mahout at the camp, and I grew up observing how he gave commands and handled his elephant,” says R. Palanichamy, 47, one of the experienced mahouts of the camp, which now houses 26 elephants.

Entry of an elephant to the camp starts with the capture of the animal, which is usually a habitual crop raider or one with a history of causing human casualties due to problematic human-wildlife interactions.

“We seek the blessings of our ancestors and gods before an elephant capturing operation. We pray to them to guide us during the operation, which can go awry even with a single wrong decision. We also trust our kumkis (two of them usually sandwich the elephant to be captured after the target is sedated by a dart) while climbing on the top of the wild one and tying the rope around its neck — the most difficult part of the operation. Tying ropes around the feet of the wild elephant at the guard of the kumki’s limbs is also a risky task. Believe it or not, ancestors guide us in every operation,” says Mr. Palanichamy.

The mahouts, like many others in the operation, may not get the time to eat anything once the operation starts and the elephant is lodged in a kraal (a wooden enclosure meant for training). The Department appoints a mahout and a cavady (assistant) for the new elephant, and they stay with it for the next few months.

“We do not wash our clothes used during the operation until the elephant is ready for release (from the kraal many weeks later). Some mahouts abstain from taking bath for the entire period of taming. No fragrant items, including bath soap, are used. This is to get the elephant conditioned to the handler’s scent and make it feel that the human interacting with it is also in the dirt and has a natural odour,” explains G. Kumar, 44, another mahout.