This is what we absolutely loved about ‘The Elephant Whisperers’

While RRR seems to have caught the nation’s attention with recent wins at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards, the Golden Globes Awards, and a nomination for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards, two other Indian films deserve equal attention, if not more, for their brilliant contribution to cinema. Guneet Monga’s The Elephant Whisperers and Shaunak Sen’s All that Breathes have been nominated under the categories Best Documentary Short Film and Best Documentary Feature Film, respectively.

We’ve just finished watching Monga’s documentary and here’s what we loved. 

A heart-warming tale between man and beast

The Elephant Whisperers is much more than the official synopsis that reads: ‘Bomman and Bellie, a couple in South India, devote their lives to caring for an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu, forging a family like no other that tests the barrier between the human and the animal world.’

We see Raghu, a baby elephant, enter the lives of Bomman and Bellie, and change them forever. Raghu’s mother was electrocuted, and thus Bomman and Bellie were assigned to take care of the orphaned baby. Raghu was found in an extremely bad shape at the Theppakdu Elephant Camp—the largest contiguous, and one of Asia’s oldest wild spaces for the Asian elephant. 

How a family, a village, and its people find their purpose

 

Bomman and Bellie’s lives start and end at caring for the elephants that reside in the forest. Bomman's family lived in this forest and generation after generation have been taking care of the elephants. On the other hand, Bellie’s ex-husband was killed by a tiger, and soon after she was assigned to take care of baby elephants in the area. At that time, she was the only woman to be assigned for the task. Together, the two play an instrumental role in the well-being of these pachyderms. Though they are not alone in this endeavour. A host of other villagers feed, bathe, and nurture these majestic creatures. These residents live off the forest and know that they have to protect it by all means. Bomman and Bellie know that the next generation of their families, including Bellie’s granddaughter, Sanjana, will continue taking care of the elephants and their families. The good-heartedness of the people of the village will never end. 

Animals that are more emotive than humans 

One of the major reasons why I loved The Elephant Whisperers is because it didn’t just show the human perspective, but also brilliantly portrayed what Raghu felt. The movie is interspersed with adorable scenes centred on Raghu’s life—you see him getting angry, being upset, having fun while spraying water on his mahout and kids while having a bath, and creating many other heart-touching moments. We also see him befriend Krishna, another elephant, who he learns how to pick grass from. Raghu, time and again, shows his affection and love towards the families in the village. One of my most favourite scenes in the documentary is where Bellie talks about her daughter passing away and how Raghu wiped her tears with his trunk and consoled her—it is an absolute tear-jerker. You soon realise that Bellie has found a child in Raghu and feels that her daughter has come back into her life in the form of Raghu. 

A service to God

Elephants at the Theppakdu Elephant Camp are not looked upon as orphaned, abandoned, displaced creatures that need to be taken care of. They are revered by the village and have a special ceremony where the calves are taken to seek their blessings from Lord Ganesha. For the people in the village, serving an elephant is equivalent to serving God. This is how they accept and acknowledge God’s presence in their life. 

Distance, indeed, makes the heart grow fonder

Watching a close member of the family go away is tough for any person to handle and it is no different for animals. Having found a best friend in Raghu, Ammu, the youngest elephant in the herd, is absolutely heartbroken when officials take Raghu away. It moved her so much that she didn’t have milk for two days. Bomman and Bellie, too, didn’t eat for a couple of days. With the duo having gone through such hardships and difficulties in raising Raghu and ensuring his survival, watching him being taken away leaves a lump in your throat. It’s only when he returns, do you realise how much they’ve missed him. 

The bond between Bomman and Bellie

The documentary may be a story of the connection between man and animals, but it also touches upon the human emotions. It is adorable to watch Bomman and Bellie together—they started off as caregivers of countless elephants, but their love for what they do brings them together in a holy matrimony.