By Ratna Manucha
Dear Reader (Human),
Apparently, my ilk and I are in the news. We seem to be making headlines. For the life of me I can’t figure out why. You see, Rajaji National Park is supposed to be our home along with other animals, or that’s what we were led to believe, but slowly and steadily our home seems to be shrinking, as I’m sure the homes of wild animals across the country are too.
For one, the trees seem to have thinned, and strange looking structures seem to have appeared around the periphery of our forest. Alien creatures stay there. I think they belong to the species called homo sapiens. They are noisy and crude and loud which confuses the living daylights out of us. Our natural routes too have changed as peculiar looking grey structures have started snaking around and through our forest. In the beginning I thought it was a very long snake, but I was wrong. This unfamiliar formation, it turns out, is called a road. Among the many disadvantages it had I’ll list two here for you. The first being it enabled more of these humans to enter our homes, stare at us, make funny sounds and disturb our peace and the second being, we, who were so used to walking on soft ground, feeling the crunch of fallen leaves, now had to get used to sometimes walking on this hard surface which started causing damage to our footpads, toenails and joints. This causes a great amount of pain and since we are clueless about how to deal with it, we become irritable. Oh, I forgot to mention that our routes too have changed. Humans talk about elephant corridors and all that fancy sounding stuff. Nonsense.
If that is so more often than not, why do we find ourselves venturing into human habitations? Obviously because we have lost our way. And why do we lose our way? No prizes for guessing.
Then the next day’s headlines read, “Elephants cause havoc in residential area”. Rubbish! It’s we the elephants who are in panic mode ‘cause we have suddenly come across these strange edifices (I think they are called buildings), standing in our path. And instead of letting us find our way out they start screaming and throwing stuff at us. Obviously, we get scared and just push things like cars and scooters out of our way and make a hasty exit. It is just a gentle nudge…not our fault if we are strong and these human toys overturn. Harrumph!
Not to mention the bright lights and hooting of horns on these roads. We are so clueless as to how to cross to the other side, we keep waiting for the lights to dim or the noise to lessen but, of course, the humans are dim witted enough to shine the lights straight into our eyes and the cacophony gets louder with them screaming, headlights flashing and cameras clicking, we get completely disoriented. When chaos ensues, we are blamed. Obviously, because we cannot speak their language, nobody hears us. How would the humans like it if the roles were reversed? We too have feelings, you know. We also get hurt…physically yes, but emotionally too.
And that brings me to my latest story. Just the other night, my cow and our two calves were trundling peacefully through the forest, minding our own business, planning to cross to the other side where the rest of our herd stays, when suddenly, the peace was disturbed by raucous noise coming from the edge. You do know what loud sounds do to us elephants…we get confused, sensing unknown dangers and risks ahead of us. Which in turn leads to stress and changes in our behaviour.
As we neared the forest’s edge, I noticed two huge ugly metallic things (I believe they are called trucks or trolleys or something like that) from where this horrible loud noise was coming (I learnt now it’s called music). Humans attired in clothes the colour of marmalade seemed to be cavorting and convulsing in all distorted shapes to this loud noise. It confused me so much…first, they, along with their monstrosities were encroaching upon our space and, secondly, upon noticing us, they started screaming and trying to shoo us away with sticks and stones. I lost it completely. Sometimes, these humans exhibit such animalistic behaviour, it makes me wonder why they call us animals. We are better behaved I feel. Most of the time we go about minding our own business, it’s only when provoked and that too by these so-called humans, that we act to defend ourselves.
Coming back to what happened, I just effortlessly removed the obstructions, and we went on our way. It’s not my fault they overturned. I’m strong. That’s the way I was made. I actually don’t have to use much force.
And sure enough, the next day’s headlines screamed, ‘Provoked by loud music jumbos storm a religious camp’.
Panic? Alarm? Fear? Who caused it for whom? I’d like to ask.
I do hope you humans read this and act before it is too late. The Earth is huge. There is enough space for everyone. Please take yourselves and your monstrous, loud, obnoxious toys (read vehicles), structures and sounds away from our territory.
How about making a pact, right here, right now. You leave us and our jungle alone and we’ll stay out of your way. Peaceful coexistence, it’s called. Heard of it? Come on, give it a shot.
With love (we are capable of it),
Gajraj
(The Gentle Giant).
(Ratna Manucha is an educationist, author and columnist. She lives, dreams and writes in Dehradun, her happy place).
