December 2020 – Ravi Tandukar

Watching a Netflix doco this arvo on human animals co-existence in a remote forest turned village somewhere in South Asia, made me wonder there should be a way the two could have existed together rather than trampling into each other’s territory, killing each other. Towards the end the doco shows the villagers finally discover an ingenious way to keep the giants away, planting citrus trees around their homes, turns out the animals cannot stand the smell of the fruit.

Well as well known as it is, the fact is undeniable that it is the humans who encroached upon the elephants forests, making way for the fields and plantations to feed themselves. Undeniably humans are at fault and aggressor as it has always been throughout history starting from the so called ‘stone age’. Agriculture ensured human’s survival in the planet, however spelled doomed for many of the species, elephants are in the list next.

In the doco the data was two hundred elephants killed so far compared to eighty humans in the past ten years of living next to each other. Given the intelligence and sheer number of humans, the stats was is pretty much in balance. Still, I felt instinctively sorry for the elephants more than the human casualty. Not a split second thought, a natural and spontaneous response arose from within me. Was it mother nature’s trait calling from inside me? Was it favouring the underdog as the elephants are rare and are heading towards extinction due to human activities? Is it the ‘beauty’ and ‘grace’ of the animals that makes me think they deserve better than other animals, and may be even the humans?

I suspect the answer probably lies deep beneath my, and our conscious minds, somewhere buried inside the sub conscious, that we have link and connection to these beasts far beyond our current existence as humans, I am referring to our ancestors’ – Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals and those before before; interaction with these mostly gentle giants. It is probably part nature, part social or cognitive working of our sub conscious minds that result in such sympathy towards certain animals. We were like them before, we were in the list of soon to be extinct as well, just like them, only that somehow we managed to, or nature chose us to, survive and thrive.