If you want to be a mahout

A beautiful picture will unfold for you if you spend some hundred Nepalese Rupees to take a two- hour elephant ride in the Chitwan National Park in southern Nepal bordering India.

On a lumbering elephant, you plough through the moist jungles where unnamed birds call from unseen boughs and amber broad leaves fall on the forest floor with a sigh; pleasant surprises around are waiting for you -- onehorned rhinos with armor-like hides look at you with slobber while spotted deer skip away and crash into the thick growth of grass at your approach.

The elephant safari is so charming in the 932-square kilometer wildlife sanctuary that you may want to be the man who sits on the same elephant’s shoulders before you and direct it.

Nirajan Chaudary, 27, from Tharu community in Sauraha, Chitwan, is the man. As an experienced mahout, Nirajan, with his female elephant, If you want to be a mahoutMEND OR END 167 Champakali, 35, won twice in the elephant race in 2009 and 2010. Champakali covered the 300-meter distance in 1 minute 13 seconds during the 2010 race. Nirajan told Xinhua on the eve of the 8th International Elephant race which ended on December 28 that Champakali took part in the race many times before becoming the winner. What made a past loser becomes today’s winner? Nirajan answered, there is no secret, but his elephant is good and smart, also bigger than other elephants. Others need 15kg paddy per day while Champakali needs 20 kgs.

All the participants hope to win, especially young elephants that are smarter. If they are strong enough, they can run faster. So Nirajan gives sugar to his elephant twice a week. Besides, he cuts her long nails, in case that the nails hurt herself while running.

Naturally, the 27-year man does not forget to bring his fighting elephant into the Rapti River in the national park to bathe her. Painting some pictures on her big ears and long nose is also necessary to make her outstanding.

It is unimaginable to decorate elephants to cater for tourists ten years ago when the insurgency launched by Nepal’s Maoists was like a wildfire and poaching was heightened. “Before organizing the festival in 2004, the government and Maoists had been fighting, the tourists have become fewer and fewer. To promote our business and protect elephants, we came up with the idea,” said Shankar Saiju, a Sauraha hotelier who organized this festival.

Almost eight years have passed. Nowadays such a stunning festival highlights this UNESCO World Heritage site at the Himalayan foothills and has been a great hit, attracting more than 10,000 tourists from Nepal and abroad every year.

Saiju said in a special interview with Xinhua that the tourism industry of the Chitwan National Park is heavily dependent on a small population of domesticated and trained working elephants.

It is estimated that there are only about 200 elephants in Nepal and more than 60 percent are in the venue for the 8th elephant festival, tourist village of Sauraha which is the main gateway to the national park. Nirajan said with a smile, “My job is to look after the elephant and serve the guests by taking them to jungles by elephant. Making them happy, I can make money and I will be happy too.”

It is uneasy to train the Asian Elephant although that is considered the intelligent, friendly, beneficial and biggest mammal on earth.

“All the elephants are wild at first,” Nirajan said, “We have to serve them, to clean out the garbage for them, to look for elephant grass. We also need to take them into the river and bathe their bodies. These jobs are very necessary. If we don’t do these and walk up to the elephant, taking it for granted that the elephant is mine, the elephant will attack you.

“After serving the elephant for a long time, slowly the elephant knows that you are helping him and you are a friend. Then he will agree to be driven by you. “Love develops with time. Champakali has become part of Nirajan’s life.

“I like my elephant. We play together, bathe together and dance together. She is very important to me,” Nirajan said.

In fact, this female elephant is not Nirajan’s private property, it belongs to local hotels which organize the festival and Nirajan just works for them. The close relation between Nirajan and his elephant is what those organizers wish: to make the best use of the elephant in the national park, also home to Bengal Tigers, Rhinos, Gharial Crocodiles and migratory birds, and to promote the harmony between man and animal on the same planet.

(This article was released by Xinhua on December 29, 2011)