Coimbatore’s friendly elephant Chinna Thambi returns to home ground as a kumki

It is as though a festival is in progress on a patch of forest at the Periyanayakkanpalayam range. Scooters and cars are parked haphazardly along a stretch as families arrive in droves, children in tow. A young father leads his daughter through the crowd, while a mother walks briskly, hugging her baby to her chest. As dusk nears, more young men pour in on bikes to the forest at Varappalayam in the suburbs of Coimbatore. The gathering peers into the hills beyond in the receding light for a glimpse of their old friend, Chinna Thambi.

The elephant and the people in the neighbourhood have a history over two decades. A regular visitor at Thadagam valley, Chinna Thambi, over the years, gained the trust and friendship of locals who showered it with love and treats of fruits. Among the elephant trio Periya Thambi and the late Vinayagan, it gradually started crop-raiding, a habit that ended its carefree days in the forest. The elephant was captured from the region in January 2019 and was eventually taken to the Varagaliar elephant camp at Anamalai Tiger Reserve (ATR), where it was tamed and trained to be a kumki.  

For the first time since its capture, the elephant has come home. This time, as a kumki to participate in an operation involving another younger, crop-raiding elephant.

News of Chinna Thambi’s arrival sent his fans into a tizzy, and some of them, like M Abraham Antony Raj, have been visiting it every other day. It was Abraham, an elephant lover who is also into wildlife and conservation photography, who named the elephant. He has been observing it for 18 years. “He can recognise me,” says Abraham, as his voice chokes with emotion. “Elephants never forget.”

It is the golden hour at dusk when the forest glows, and Chinna Thambi, weighed down by a heavy iron chain at its feet, casually munches on grass. “That’s a good boy; come on now, do your thing. Pose with your trunk on your tusk,” calls out M Manickaraj from the crowd. An electrician from nearby Madathur, he has come to see the elephant. Chinna Thambi picks up powdery red soil at his feet and showers his back and feet with it, and Manickaraj says, “Dei thambi, it’s time for your bath, eh?” For Manickaraj, like many others, the 34-year-old elephant is like a brother. As people around it watch, Chinna Thambi pauses to look at them, curiously. It remains that way for a long time, eyes locked on someone.

As a kumki stationed at Varappalayam near Coimbatore
| Photo Credit:
PERIASAMY M

The elephant has two mahouts attending to it: C Murugan and S Kaliappan. Murugan, who is from Kozhikamudhi settlement at ATR, recalls the challenging initial months. “For one-and-a-half years, I would sleep next to him attending to his every need. I never went home during those days; I hardly got to meet my wife and two children,” he says. His hard work paid off, with the elephant turning into a cool-headed kumki. “This is his 10th operation, and he was successful in all of them,” he says.

Abraham swears the elephant knows it is in its home ground. “But he cannot do anything about it since he now has to obey his mahout,” he says. He feels bad for the tusker; that it has to be chained in the very forest it frolicked in, just a few years ago. Despite the crop damage it did, Chinna Thambi has a reputation for being a gentle elephant. “It did not damage any property nor attack human beings,” points out D Venkatesh, Chief Conservator of Forests, Field Director, ATR.

During the Forest Department’s operation to tranquilise and capture the translocated Chinna Thambi at a field at Kannadipudur near Udumalpet on February 15, 2019.
| Photo Credit:
PERIASAMY M

Venkatesh was the District Forest Officer during Chinna Thambi’s capture in 2019. He studied its behaviour closely prior to the process, and recalls an interesting incident. “Chinna Thambi was with a female and a male juvenile who was around seven years old when we attempted to dart it [with tranquiliser],” he says. “It took us almost two hours to separate the mother and the young one from Chinna Thambi.”

This young elephant has now grown to be a crop raider too, and ironically, the adult male it was close to, has come to drive it back into the forest.

Chinna Thambi continues to spray sand on its back, and we prepare to leave since it is time for its dinner. People click photos of it non-stop, and we cannot but wonder what it is thinking. Murugan says that some visitors unnerve him, and hopes the crowd is regulated in some way. “The other day, a drunken man stood at a distance, talking to the elephant,” he shakes his head. “He kept repeating, ‘Chinna Thambi, break the chain and run away! Run away while you can!’.”