Heaven

September 2003

We gazed into each other’s eyes but she does not see me. I watch as her eye tear. She feels.

Suddenly, as if answering a telepathic call for support, the matriarch and baby move in. They huddle together defensively, protecting their dear family member from the stranger, me.

After all, this is the first time I have met Joqia, the blind elephant. After all, it was her old mahout, my fellow human kind who had caused her to be blind. He had repeatedly shot into her eyes with a slingshot! With heavy chains tying her to the spot, she could not run or defend herself.

Thankfully though, those torturous days are over. Joqia is now in her little patch of heaven. She is in Elephant Nature Park.

Nestled in the green hills of Chiangmai, Elephant Nature Park is a sanctuary for abused and orphaned elephants. A tiny Thai lady with an enormous will (and may I add, a very stubborn streak too) - Kun Lek a.k.a. Lek (which incidentally means “little” in Thai), buys over these elephants so they will not have to work anymore. Finally free, the elephants nurse their emotional and mental scars in the comforting company of fellow comrades.

The babies - Hope and Jungle Boy were hilarious. Short, stout and chubby, their clumsy trot never fail to bring on a laugh. Their bums would jiggle and small trunks dangle uncontrollably. Always full of mischief, they pushed each other back into the water, creating a jam at the exit from the river.

Jungle Boy and Hope weren’t always in such good form though. They had come in as orphans.

Elephants this young are very dependent on their mothers and family members. Not till they are 10 or in their teens do they venture out of sight of their family (typically for males). In the 1st 3 to 5 years they are wholly dependent on their mothers, both physically and emotionally. The babies are showered with unconditional love and care round the clock, 24 hours a day. The infants will not survive otherwise. Some die purely of heartache. Denied of the love of its family, it loses the will to survive.

Many baby elephants born into captivity suffer such heartache, and much more. Nursing mothers can hardly provide adequate amounts of milk, not having the chance to feed or nurse their babies whilst at work. At the tender age of 4, the baby elephant is forcibly separated from their mother for the 1st time. But this is just the beginning of the horror.

The young elephant, in its stressed and confused state, is then chained and shut in a wooden cage too small for it to even turn, and deprived of food and water.

In a most hair-raising display of sadistic cruelty, it is constantly beaten with poles, thrown with stones and jabbed with nails (so that the wound inflicted penetrates the thick hide and it bleeds). This torture carries on for days, even up to a week, until it gives up the fight and submits to the bidding of its tormentor. More often than not, the helpless elephant is by then, so weak it can barely walk. Many of the wounds inflicted are not treated.

I wept as I watched a human being battered again and again, with each blow the weapon ripping the flesh off bit by bit. I shuddered as men, in their own gratification of power over a helpless man, continue to thrash him with sticks and stones. I had to shut my eyes the moment they hammered the sharp rusty nail through the skin and flesh of his hand into the cross that he bore.

This was the film “Passion of Christ”. The graphic re-enactment of the torture Jesus bore made many who watched it react the same way as I did. The tortures laid upon Iraqi inmates, brought upon by the corruption of the absolute power the US soldiers had over their charge also drew a big outcry internationally.

Is it one of the big mysteries or ironies of life when the same violation to different species – one human and the other elephant draws different reactions?

Many domestic Asian elephants go through the same spine chilling torture.

Not in Lek’s Elephant Nature Park. She advocates the taming of elephants through love and coaxes. The traditional tool mahouts use to make their elephants do their bidding - the hooked nail jabbed into the area behind the ears (where it is most sensitive) is forbidden here. A gentle nudge of the knee and a lot of verbal commands replace it.

As I drifted into peaceful of sleeps that night, I was aware that the melody of the crickets in the forest was punctured occasionally by the trumpeting of elephants. It was Joqia and her family talking to each other. They were telling each other their whereabouts as they once again roam free.

The image of Carl, a tiny human, walking alongside his gigantic friend, Max floated back into my head. Man and Beast. Neither was master of the other. In their calm, steady strides, both were silent. But there was not a need for words. And it was possible.

It is an image I will never forget.