INDIA BEATS
Jumbo undertaker
PRIYADARSHINI
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He is at war with the world but has made peace with elephants. Abraham Thomas' rubber estate near Kochi is a burial ground for elephants.
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STRANGE OBSESSIONS: tHOMAS
LONG before he receives deliverance, 79-year-old Abraham Thomas has constructed his grave. And in his self-written epitaph, he refers to himself ottayan or a rogue elephant. Like the rogue elephant that is never with the herd, his crypt is not along with the 47 elephant graves, Silent Tombs, on his 150-acre Palakunnam estate in Kanjirapally, Kerala. His rubber estate is a burial ground for elephants and not a gold mine like other rubber estates; an advocate by profession, he has remained a lonely old bachelor burying pachyderms; he belongs to one of Kerala's oldest Malpan family, which revolutionised Christianity in India, but shuns religion violently — all these make him an elephantine riddle. A riddle whose answer will perhaps be interred along with the "pulsating bundle of bones" that he refers to as his body.
An enigma
Abraham Thomas is an enigma. A man who claims that sleeping in graveyards was a hobby that began as a bid to win a bet and prove a point, he has now taken up this singular vocation. "I slept in a kabristan (graveyard) in Delhi to begin with. That was a bet. It was scary but only for that first time. I am not scared of ghosts. I was never afraid of God and now I am not afraid of the Devil," says Thomas who flaunts his atheism.
The remote rubber estate of Palakunnam lies 100 km southeast of Kochi. The Manimala flows to its north and east. Its hilly slopes are thick with rare flora and fauna. And trumpeting of elephants intermittently breaks the heavy pall of silence. This brings you to the heart of the elephant graveyard. Inscribed tablets show where lie the remains of Ravi Chembukavu, died of a snake bite, 2004; of Narayan Pattambi, of Ammu of Veegaland; of Mankiandan Ottappalam, electrocuted; of Behadur, Jumbo circus, 2002; Ganeshan Uliyanoor, hit by a lorry, 2000; of Gangaprasad Ottappalam.
Against the tide
"May their souls/soles rest in peace," says Thomas in wry humour; "that is if you believe in souls, otherwise the soles." And suddenly raising his hand, he cries out, "Makkale," (children) to the two of his seven elephants. Ganeshan and Sheela sway their trunks at the familiar call. Priya and Sheena, the estate hands, feed them leafy palm branches, while rice cooked in huge mud pots is stirred with wooden oars and cooled. It is one o'clock in the afternoon and lunchtime for the jumbos.
The silent tombs
"I have always swum against the tide," says Thomas, justifying his strange obsession with death. "Death is the noblest thing conferred, by Nature, on man. I come from a family of bishops but I rebelled against priests of all religions. I hate the hypocrisy and corruption in institutions," he says angrily. And that he cites as the reason he began the burial of elephants on his estate.
So began his tryst with dead jumbos, the burying of 3,000 kilos of flesh and a carcass that is at times six feet high. An earth excavator is used to drag the dead mass, which is lowered in a 14 x 14 x 14 pit. The last rites are done according to the wishes of the owner. "Very few owners of the elephants visit the graves. There have been only two cases where people have come again," he says with distaste.
And he recounts why he began to charge for what began as a free service. With elephantine memory, he recalls each and every burial. "The fourth one was that of an actor's elephant. They came as a troupe of 60 mourners and drank and ate and made phone calls raising a bill of more than Rs. 3, 000. After this I began charging each burial Rs.15, 000, the cost of a cent of land. An elephant grave requires a cent. The removal of tusks costs Rs. 5, 000 and they belong to the owner," he explains.
And so the last seven years have seen Thomas bury 47 pachyderms and live with the spirits of the dead jumbos. And since then, he believes that strange things have begun to happen to him. "There are things I have no explanation for," says the man who is at cross-purpose with God and the supernatural. The elephant burial he believes is changing his life. "Yes, my elephants weep when they go out of my land and I too weep with them. The elephant has given me love, just like my parents. It is the most affectionate creature, even more than the dog," he says his eyes growing moist with emotion. And so jumbo undertaker, Abraham Thomas, at war with the world but at peace with the elephant, gives this majestic animal a most fitting burial.
India Beats features stories on the unusual, the exotic and the extraordinary.
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