Mamata back after one-night stand

LUCKNOW: They were not looking for lice in a clump of matted hair. Yet, they had to undertake an arduous ‘combing’ operation through the night.

What a team of anxious foresters was actually looking for was a lost lady elephant in the dense jungles of the Rajaji National Park in Uttarakhand.

This is the story of Mamata, a teen-aged pachyderm, who apparently eloped with-or was perhaps bulldozed into accompanying-a male tusker into the thick jungle on Tuesday.

Half-a-dozen teams comprising five to six forest personnel each scanned the Chilla range of the forest for Mamata (16). The forest officials heaved a sigh of relief when she finally returned around 1.30 am on Thursday. Whether they had mated  during their one-night stand is yet to be confirmed.

Mamata and two other young elephants -Ragini and Radhi- had gone for a stroll, accompanied by their keepers for grazing when a wild tusker attacked them. The keepers ran for their lives, and while the two other elephants returned, Mamata went away with the tusker.

Park director GS Pande said  Mamata had been abandoned by the tusker later. “But it could not come back as it was not familiar with the territory. She has come only in February this year, and we are still training it,” he said.

“We were really anxious… it might have cost us our jobs,” Chandola told this correspondent. Mamata has been the subject of a court case after claims to its ownership.  She had been seized from the accused in the case, and handed over to the park by the Delhi high court.

“There are more than 2,000 elephants in the Rajaji National Park, and it was a difficult task to trace one missing elephant. But our men recognised  her  from the gadeli (the seat on the back of the elephant used by people to sit on it for a safari), and the rope tied to its feet,” says SK Chandola, chief wildlife warden, Uttarakhand.

The foresters managed to track down the missing cow elephant by following the trail left behind by this rope on the damp soil at several places.

Renowned elephant expert Mike Pande feels the wild male could have been in a state of musth. “Most often it takes place in winter,” he told DNA. “A bull in musth often charges a female regardless of whether the latter is in heat,” says Pande, whose films on elephants have won Green Oscars twice.

“A cow elephant at 16 is just reaching puberty and this could have attracted the tusker. Bull elephants get attracted to the scent of even women. We have faced major problems when women are around,” says Mike Pande. “Sex and mating are very powerful emotions. Man or beast, they change one’s personality completely,” he quips.