How dangerous are elephants?
I was stunned to read the article on Elephants in
the Coffee in Khabar (“Issues: Coffee and Conflict,” – November 2017), because I wanted to write about that as
well. You see, our estate is not very far from Nagarhole
National Park, and we have a huge elephant problem
(pun intended).
It first began in May 2014. Our workers told us that
elephants were sighted near our estate, but we were
not too worried. Our estate did not border the forest,
so the elephants wouldn’t come there. But they did.
One rainy night in May, we were at our little house on
the estate, when we heard trumpeting really close by.
We stayed awake hoping that they wouldn’t knock
down our walls, because they are just mud walls. In
the morning, my husband and our maistry (overseer)
found footprints galore near a small pond within 100
feet of the house. The prints showed that a young one
had gotten caught in the mud and been rescued by its
family, hence the noise. Later we found that the herd
was 13 strong with one baby, at least, in their midst. I
saw the place where one had slipped and where another
had smashed a jackfruit with its feet.
Ever since, elephants have become a huge menace.
They are very silent, so you can literally stumble
across them. And they are not really gentle giants.
They give chase and if they catch you, they either
throw you or gore you to death. And they are scared,
so they are aggressive. My sister-in-law was sweeping
the yard near her house and looked up to see three
elephants within 10 feet of her. She ran to her house,
and they chased her. She ran around a small hedge,
and they ran through it. For some reason, they stopped
where the cemented driveway was, and turned
and went back. Otherwise, she would have been
killed that day.
All this leads to an atmosphere of fear. You have
to constantly watch out. It was lovely to walk in the
estate, but no longer. You can’t outrun them, so you
have to stay near habitation. Workers won’t come to
work if they know you have visiting elephants on your
estate. Even staying in a house on the estate can be
very scary.
I used to love elephants. I still do, but I’m also
deathly scared of them. Their numbers are increasing,
and they are becoming used to food and water being
easily available on estates. The forest department is
doing nothing, except setting off firecrackers, which
make them run into the next estate. They are back later,
as if nothing has happened. It is a very real problem
that is also occurring in other parts of the world like
Tanzania and Sri Lanka. There is no solution in sight.
There is also another problem in Coorg—tigers.
Yes, tigers are also entering cattle sheds in some parts
of the district and preying upon cattle. And recently, a
wild leopard was caught in the Mysore Zoo, which is
quite close to our house.
As the Chinese proverb goes, we are living in very
‘interesting’ times indeed!
Lakshmi Palecanda
by email
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Thoughtless, disrespectful audiences
Yesterday evening when I heard about a certain
dance show being presented by my childhood idol, I
was excited and couldn’t wait to attend it. I wrapped
up my work and drove to the other side of town, feeling
restless that I was running late. After some difficulty
finding the venue, I ran into the auditorium a
full half-hour late, only to be told the performance
had not started. For once, I was rescued by my fellow
desis’ lack of punctuality. Or maybe the show was
not actually supposed to start and that was the time
to get some food. Either way, it was all good.
But the pre-show started a full hour after that!
While local artists were performing a medley of
songs and dances, there was a barrage of advertisements
being projected on the background. It was not
only distracting but extremely embarrassing to be watching advertisements for spa and massages
while somebody’s niece and nephew were depicting
Krishna’s character.
Every single item was followed by immediately
felicitating the choreographer and artists. Couldn’t all
the appreciation wait till the end? We all like to be appreciated
for our hard work, but there is an organized
and classy way to do it without undermining the audience’s
time. I couldn’t wait till this was over.
I was finally relieved when the featured artists
of the evening arrived, or so I thought. The organizers
couldn’t stop walking through aisles without
having the minimum courtesy to try to bend a little
and not block the audience’s view. So were some of
the adults who just have to take bathroom breaks or
walk their kids in and out. The kids sitting behind me
were unhinged in their loud conversations with their
parents nowhere in sight, and I had to silence them
twice. Even the adults who sat next to me were constantly
waving to the organizers passing by like that
was the time to exchange pleasantries. Why do people
who can’t sit through an hour long show silently even
bother to come only to ruin it for others? Can’t we
learn from how a Western ballet or a symphony
audience conducts itself?
My thirty bucks and an entire evening could
have been well spent, but it was one of my worst
experiences.
Please pass my rant to all dance show organizers
who can empathize with my disappointment. My
intention is not to insult or denigrate anyone, but as
someone with a keen interest in arts and dance and
as someone who took dance classes in my childhood,
I really like to soak in and enjoy the performances
with little distractions. Most importantly, we won’t
be doing justice to the artists’ talent and hard work
as well, unless we value their performance.
Raghu Oddiraju
by email
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