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Magazine
LENSEYE
In praise of the pachyderm
S. BINU RAJ
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A photographer charmed by the ways of the elephant opens a gallery dedicated to the revered animal.
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Photos: B. Chandra kumar
Vignettes of a magnificent beast: Photographs from the exhibition.
The grace of an elephant is beyond words. B. Chandra Kumar, a photographer, has followed elephants for more than a decade. Elephants just happened to stray before his lens and thus dictated his frame. “It happened in 1995, during one of my assi
gnments at the elephant training centre Kodanad. I was there to shoot the mischievous moods of little Parvathi, an elephant calf who had strayed into the camp from the forest. Those photographs were widely appreciated. After that I started following wild and tamed elephants with my camera”, says Chandra Kumar.
Rare moments
He wanted to frame every stage of Parvathi’s growth. But when he returned to Kodanad after a year, Parvathi had met with a premature death. Her demise touched this photographer’s heart and he began to learn about the lives of elephants, with his camera. He has taken more than 500 photographs of elephants since then. Elephants have been a pet subject of photographers and millions of photographs have been taken of these mighty creatures but what makes Chandra Kumar’s pictures unique is that he has captured some rare moments. Chandra Kumar has now set up a permanent photo gallery of his elephant photographs. This unique photo gallery, at Thiruvananthapuram, is perhaps the only one of this kind.
Chandra Kumar believes that each of his photographs should give a message. “I have many photographs which show elephants killing mahouts. But I have not exhibited them, for it will send a wrong message. I don’t want my elephant photographs to be a nightmare to viewers”, he says.
Compelling sequence
But he has exhibited his masterpiece, a sequence which depicts a mahout narrowly escaping the wrath of his elephant. This happened in Thrissur. The tusker, named Paraman, became furious at the ill treatment by his mahout and it had begun to shake him off when Chandra Kumar reached there. When the mahout, Kannan, fell down, the elephant tried to gore him. Then it tried to trample him but Kannan escaped with acrobatic skills. Finally the mahout ran out of the scene under the cover of dust.
“I tried to give the message that no elephant will become violent without a reason and you can overcome even the fury of a violent elephant if you have the willpower. Kannan was able to escape because of his presence of mind,”, says Chandra Kumar who framed the whole sequence in around 50 frames. Chandra Kumar has learnt from his experience that if an elephant turns violent it will target only its mahout. Even at a temple festival venue where hundreds gather, a violent elephant will target only the mahout.
One of his photographs shows the legs of an elephant adorned by a pair of beautiful anklets. “Even if the chain is made of gold, it is a chain and a symbol of eternal bondage for this mighty animal from the woods,” says Chandra Kumar. He admits that it is only because of fear that this big animal obeys man. But the power of a big pachyderm can be awe-inspiring. Chandra Kumar’s snap of an elephant piercing its tusk into a coconut tree trunk is captioned “power”.
His experience as a sports photographer in the Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi helped him to capture this frame where other eight photographers present at the site missed it. “Like anticipating where a football will land from a kick, I anticipated that the violent elephant will target the coconut tree, I set my focus on the tree and the elephant pierced the trunk and withdrew it within a couple of seconds,” says Chandra Kumar.
Many elephants have walked into the frame of his camera, like the one that gave him a memorable shot while he was shooting the Republic Day parade rehearsal of policemen. But when he has tried to compose shots, the elephants have played truant. Chandra Kumar did not get even a single snap when he roamed around a forest for three days with a team that had set out for taking census of wild elephants.
This young photographer has travelled through elephant corridors in Parambikulam, Munnar, Chinnar and Muthanga forests and has closely watched the habits of wild elephants.
Elephants have a good sense of smell and they can easily identify poachers by smell and if they find one, outright attack is the result. Wild elephants allow photographers to take photographs from a distance. “But if we try to cross the limit, the female head of the herd will slowly lead others to a safe place and will return to scare us,” says Chandra Kumar.
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