My parents
I was born around 1972 in Nedungayam elephant camp, Nilambur Kerala, in
India.
My mother was a working camp elephant, and her name was Rani. She
was caught when she was young in a "kheddah
operation", and she spent her adult years working,
pulling teaklogs. But her "mahout"
always released her after work, and she always went to the
djungle, where she met my father, a wild tusker, one night in
1970.
I dont know very much about him, but I believe that he was
large, handsome and strong, with long white tusks,
belonging to the noble cast of war elephants called "Komeriah".
He was probably in "musth".
My mother was in heat.
It was fullmoon. They fell in love.
My mothers companions first became very upset, and the djungle
was filled with trumpeting and roaring. But after a while they
calmed down and stayed at some distance, making rumbling
sounds to each other, flapped their ears and nervously scratched
the ground with their feet.
But my parents paid no attention to them. They were lost in each other, like elephants and people are, when they fall in love, and they saw no one else. Finally, they mated.