Thursday, June 9, 2011

# MY TWO CENTS

Tuskers 'in charge'

 Place - Mysore, Karnataka. 
Time: 5.30 AM round-about. 
June- 08-2011

The traditional City, Mysore woke up with people taking morning walks, buying newspaper/milk. And what they saw! The scenes like these!


People tried alerting the forest officials. But, the run-riot had already begun. This behavior of elephants is totally bizarre! they do not enter cities usually. The skirmishes with the humans in the elephant corridor are quite common. But why did they come into the city where they do not find any food to eat? Were they enraged because they were chased off by the farmers? God only knows!

One of the elephants encountered a cow tied to pole on its way. It started charging at it violently. Poor cow was tied to its destiny. 

Cow fought valiantly. Each time it was rammed by the tusker, it gathered on its feet. Till the final blow came when the tusker pierced it's body. It fell. People who were witnessing the scene were whistling, making sounds, clapping etc. probably to divert the elephant. It only maddened the elephant. 

For people, it was just pell-mell. 



The younger tusker went deeper into the city. Where people would not have expected an elephant (of all the animals) on the streets. There stood an innocent security guard who was watching this elephant with amusement( like many other people ). I really
wonder what went wrong, the elephant just ran into him, threw him on the ground, pierced him. 

Many attempts of people to divert, did not work again. 

I can quite possibly understand, if a mahout is killed by an elephant because he might have ill-treated the elephant sometime.
But, what did this security guard do? What about the Cow?
The person who had tied the cow to the pole must be feeling miserable at its gory fate.
Later the elephants were tranquilized and left in the forest.

As I saw in today's news paper, the headlines says "1 man killed" and the cow's death takes a corner. That is the respect we have for the animals!
-----------------------------------

In the same light, I remembered an incident. This happened when we went to a wild-life safari in a jeep. On a rainy morning, we spotted a herd of elephants. This herd had 2 baby elephants and 4 adults.

                                                              <Image from the internet.>

Our idiotic driver wanted to make the elephants charge at the jeep. He deemed it to be a  thrilling experience. He was honking like crazy, and accelerating with the brakes pressed just to irritate the elephants. Yes. They were scared. They ran into the forest trumpeting, choosing to go away from us.

But, what if the elephants had really charged?
1) There was only one route, backwards into the sloppy, muddy roads. The only way to go was in the reverse gear. If we had got stuck (high possibility) no one would have survived. Let me remind you, there were 4 adult elephants.
2) Elephants are even more dangerous when they have calves with them. They are very very protective and can get easily infuriated.

That day, we were really lucky to have escaped.

In case, you are chased by an elephant. What can you do?
a) If a man chooses to run, one should remember that elephants can easily outrun a man. The only way to escape can be, to run in a zig-zag path. The path traced should be zig-zag for the elephant not for the man. :D It takes time for the elephant to shift weight from one direction to another.  

b) If one decides to hide, one has to make sure that the wind direction is not towards the elephant. Because elephants can smell people out.

Respect animals, Save wild life. Sad when such incident happen. Man v/s Wild :(

18 comments:

  1. Today morning when I held the newspaper,was shocked to see this crazy stuff on Page 1 headlines. Tuskers in Mysore attacking men and animals.. what ??? I read into the details and my initial reaction was to be sad for the demised. What wrong had they done? well probably its a way that these elephants have chosen to teach mankind a lesson of being polite with them. That is all I could say.

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  2. Sad incident Ashwini. :( Victim's death was written that way. That is all I can say.

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  3. It was a real sad incident... I did see it on TV almost live yesterday morning... and the same thoughts were lingering my mind for the rest of the day and night too...
    It is very very unusual though, as you have pointed out.... how can they have come into the city and done all these? Just the two of them!
    May be a small revenge to the mankind for all the bad things thats they've had to endure because of us?

    Well, the safari incident you have mentioned disturbed me a lot... how could a driver on an official safari in a reserve forest do such a stupid thing??? They must be most importantly sensitive to the forest and wild and instruct tourist on the right norms... and in this case it seems to be totally irresponsible of him to do such a thing - dangerous for the tourists as well as for the wild.... Donno when there'll be some maturity in people.... sigh! (Beliye eddu hola medante!)

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  4. @Suma: I was very very disturbed very much like you. Especially seeing the cow getting killed.
    Maybe they were destined to act in this way. What else can be the reason?

    There are many idiots on the prowl in the safaris Suma. Horrible people. Do not respect forest, wildlife. They will pay the price for it sometime.

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  5. @Harish: Shocking Incident altogether!

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  6. Shocking and scary...

    Cant help wondering whether this is some kind of karmic payback for the innumerable times that horrible men have went into the forest and killed innocent elephants for their ivory :-(...sadly an innocent person and a cow had to suffer the consequences :-(.

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  7. @Sri: Apt comment. *Like*
    We consider other animals 'wild' assuming we are superior. Sometimes, they take a chance to show who is the boss around.

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  8. was really insane,was struck in door whole day...the day to remember for Mysore !! keep writing mean time do check on me :)

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  9. We encroached their habitat , now they are trying do the same with us . Everyday at least one such incident is getting reported in Hassan district . Leopards , elephants , etc . This will continue till we don't realize that they too require their space and has to be appreciated by us . Indiscriminate mining and deforestation for other resources is causing heavy dent on their habitat .

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  10. "The path traced should be zig-zag for the elephant not for the man... "
    lol... :)

    We were once charged by an elephant in mysore.. Thankfully the driver had the mind to slam the accelerator and we survived.

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  11. oh my god!! horrible scenes. brilliant photography though, especially the elephant perching on the fence :P

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  12. @Sudarshan: Kudos to the photographer. Even I liked that photo! :)
    Welcome to my blog.. :)

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