Bathing With Elephants

Knee deep in river water, scrubbing a baby elephant with a coconut

husk, I paused to pull out my camera. One of the other elephants was

making a run for it, and his trainer was trailing behind him, holding

on to his tail to no avail, as it is much like trying to stop a moving

vehicle with a thread. Eva, the four year old female, won this tug of

war, but she didn't stray far. It seems she just wanted to have a bit

of freedom before returning to having her body scrubbed. I'd liken it

to a child objecting to having her ears excavated with a

washcloth...the baby had reached her limit for the moment.

 

I returned to splashing Ammu, my three year old charge. She lay

quietly in foot deep water as her trainer and I gave her a good wash.

Every couple of minutes the little "finger" on the end of her wormy

trunk would snake out of the water like the hose of a vacuum cleaner,

and find my hand. The end of an elephant's trunk is so far removed

from the main event that it seems like it's a creature all its own, a

hollow snake with an enormous craw. When her exploring gets out of

hand, her trainer speaks to her in Malayalam, and tells her to keep it

to herself--and she does, doubling it up and submerging it in the

water.

 

I'm less interested in brillo-ing the dung from Ammu's rump than I am

in revelling in her size, touching her hair and skin--it feels like a

cross between leather and soft rubber. I run my palm along the ends

of her hair: inch long quills that are stiff enough not to tickle, but

soft enough not to hurt.

 

I have so many questions about the babies, who truly look prehistoric

and not of this world. Unfortunately, none of the trainers speak

English--this evidenced by the response I get when I ask about the

runaway elephant. "Is she mad?" I asked while I pointed to Eva. The

reply was, "No, female."...on second thought, maybe he knew English

perfectly well. After all, any female I know who was ordered to sit

down and be quiet would go running downstream as well.

 

To my ear, Malayalam words all sound similar...and many people

speaking Malayalam all at once is the equivalent of many radios tuned

to different stations playing in your ear. Not so for the elephants,

who can discern their own trainer's voice from others, and who can

tell the difference between, "Put your legs straight out," and "Pull

your legs together like you're balancing on a ball," or "Head up,

trunk up." At three years old, I doubt I minded as well.

 

By the time the bathing session was over, we had washed EVERYTHING:

under trunk, under belly, under tail. It's amazing that's animals so

enormous can be trained to behave so well, although, it was a bit

eerie finding a story in the local paper when I returned back to town

detailing the killing of a muhoot (trainer) by an angry elephan

yesterday. Would Ammu ever do such a thing? It didn't seem possible

when I was hugging her head today, reaching across her torso, or

squeezing her trunk. Let's hope not.

Done