The Blood
of Elephants
The kind of things
that get attached to culture as human life rolls along is astounding.
Take elephants, for example, without whom one can’t talk about
Malayali culture. The practice of capturing wild elephants and domesticating
them is age-old in Kerala. There is even an ancient Sanskrit guide to
the art of elephant-keeping. Malayali traditionalists revel in elephant
lore. There are legendary names in the history of captive elephants
which Malayalis mention with reverence. Surprisingly, most of Kerala
elephants are of non-Malayali origin! They are mostly from Bihar and
Orissa, leading to a lot of linguistic problems if they have been trained
in Hindi. Elephants have to unlearn all the Hindi and start learning
orders in dear Malayalam. With that, they enter Kerala’s cultural
mainstream.
Elephants, fed up with
ill-treatment, often kill the mahout and run amok in Kerala |
What do the elephants
do? Except for a few lucky ones kept by rich temples or wealthy individuals,
the rest work their bottoms off, often in miserable conditions, brutalised
by drunk or sadistic mahouts, and are underfed. Inhuman treatment is
meted out to them. It is common in Kerala that elephants, fed up with
ill-treatment, kill the mahout and run amok. They are then labelled
‘mad’ and are tortured.
Yet, Malayali cultural
doublespeak romanticises the elephant as if the unfortunate prisoner
is the chief symbol of our sacred tradition. This is achieved by the
pride of place given to elephants in temple festivals, especially the
Thrissoor Pooram, where the parade of decorated elephants is indeed
a sight to be seen. Christians and Muslims also use elephants to make
their gods happy. The plain fact is that paraded elephants have to go
through hell to please God and man. They are brought from hundreds of
kilometres away, walking on the near-boiling roads, some killed or wounded
by the traffic. They are also brought in trucks and every year a few
trucks overturn. They are made to line up without moving anything other
than their tails and ears, in an ear-splitting circus of massed percussion,
followed by, believe me, the most terrifying fireworks whose explosions
are proudly referred to as garbham-kalakki — capable of triggering
abortion. Then it’s back to the grind, till the next festival.
Or till tourism’s elephant-mela calls. Here, they also have to
run races!
The whole thing
is bizzare. It’s like Hitler holding up Jewish victims as a shining
symbol of culture. Or Americans of the slavery days romanticising the
Blacks with holy lore and hanging them up from the next tree. A few
voices are occasionally heard in protest. But nobody dares to do away
with the slavery. Environmentalists hit the roof about forests, but
close their eyes to the heartless enslavement of a great citizen of
the forest. Hypocrisy about elephants comes naturally to the media,
the intellectuals, priests, politicians, et al. Because, it’s
culture, stupid! And it’s holy! What if a few elephants shed blood?
Long live Malayali culture!
