A jumbo passion

Elephant conservation has been the life of Prajna Chowta for the last 16 years. so much so that she’s even learnt to ride one as a mahout.

Want to learn how to handle the elephant? Turn to Prajna Chowta, author of the recently published The Elephant Code. The result of 16 years of experience of handling elephants and being in the company of mahouts, the book’s release was timed to coincide with the elephant being declared ‘National Heritage Animal’ and addresses the shortfalls in captive elephant management in India.

Far more interestingly, Chowta is one of very few women mahouts in the world. She learnt the skill — or is it an art? — in Wayanad, Kerala, and so intensive was the training that she spent a month just learning how to scrub and feed an elephant before she was allowed to get atop one.

Chowta has a postgraduate degree in anthropology and art history from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and was studying the community of Kuruba tribals to which most mahouts belong, when she was drawn to the elephant.

“The elephant has always been important to our culture and history. Way back in 300 BCE, Chandragupta Maurya tamed wild elephants in his armies. The elephant was an important symbol for many ancient civilisations. The Mohenjo Daro seal, for instance, has the elephant on it,” Chowta adds.

Chowta’s desire to protect the elephant led her to set up the Aane Mane (‘elephant home’ in Kannada) Foundation about a decade ago. The foundation bought land in the forests near the Mudumalai, Bandipur and Nagarhole reserves and set up the Aane Mane elephant camp. Chowta lives at this camp with her family which includes two female elephants called Kalpana and Kunti, and one calf. She had found them in Arunachal Pradesh where she had gone with her husband, Canadian documentary filmmaker Philippe Gautier, to research a film on the elephant corridor along the Indo-Burmese border. Elephants are used here for dragging timber. Kalpana and Kunti have been with Chowta for nine years now.

Chowta and Gautier have made many films on the elephant, most notably Hathi in 1996-97, which examined the reduction of elephants in the wild. Hathi was screened at the Montreal International Film Festival in 1998 and got a lot of international acclaim. It won the Golden Award at the Seoul Film Festival that year.

The couple has collaborated on the Elephas Maximus trilogy, which has been shown on European television since 2005.

Chowta and Gautier met in Mumbai in 1993 where the latter had come in connection with a French film. The couple has a four-year-old daughter named Ojas.

The Elephant Code Book examines the current methods of elephant conservation and recalls the historical background to the present situation. It reviews the classical texts on the subject as well as the scientific literature to define the principles, methods and minimum standards to be adopted as a code of conduct in the management of elephants in captivity.

“Elephants are always wild animals and very instinctive,” says Chowta, emphasising that Kalpana and Kunti are still wild. She lets the 18- and 20-year-olds out for as long as 18-20 hours and allows them to roam the forests and join the herds in the wild. “The main objective is to see them in their natural habitat.”