B Maran , camp mahout in India Born 1963? in India . Maran is known in the Theppakadu camp as Maran-Mudhumalai because he took care of the bull Mudhumalai. Maran started out as a Mahout in Chennai. He was 22 years old then and was deputed to the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Vandalur when it was inaugurated by the then Chief Minister M G Ramachandran in 1985. He travelled with an elephant from the camp in a truck for almost 16 hours to the zoo at Vandalur. It was quite a journey. “I was anxious about how the elephant would behave,” recalls Maaran, who then spent 15 years with the elephant at the zoo. Maaran has cared for nine elephants so far: Anna, the tusker; Rana, the noisy one; Baskar, the possessive one…but his favourite is Bhama, the oldest elephant at the camp, until his retirement in 2012, he was responsible Mahout for the elephant Mudumalai. “When I retired, Mudhumalai was assigned to my son T M Bomman. That’s why I still get to see him. He comes to my house in the evenings. ”
