Elephant Tamer

The elephant was lying heavily on its side, fast asleep. A few dogs started barking at it. The elephant woke up in a terrible anger: it chased the dogs into the village where they ran for safety.

That didn't stop the elephant. It destroyed a dozen houses and injured several people. The villagers were scared and angry. Then someone suggested calling Parbati, the elephant princess.

Parbati Barua's father was a hunter of tigers and an elephant tamer. He taught Parbati to ride an elephant before she could even walk. He also taught her the dangerous art of the elephant roundup how to catch wild elephants.

Parbati hasn't always lived in the jungle. After a happy childhood hunting with her father, she was sent to boarding school in the city. But Parbati never got used to being there and many years later she went back to her old life. "Life in the city is too dull. Catching elephants is an adventure and the excitement lasts for days after the chase," she says.

But Parbati doesn't catch elephants just for fun. "My work," she says, "is to rescue man from the elephants, and to keep the elephants safe from man." And this is exactly what Parbati has been doing for many years.

Increasingly, the Indian elephant is angry: for many years, illegal hunters have attacked it and its home in the jungle has been reduced to small pieces of land. It is now fighting back. Whenever wild elephants enter a tea garden or a village, Parbati is called to guide the animals back to the jungle before they can kill.

The work of an elephant tamer also involves love and devotion. A good elephant tamer will spend hours a day singing love songs to a newly captured elephant. "Eventually they grow to love their tamers and never forget them. They are also more loyal than humans," she said, as she climbed up one of her elephants and sat on the giant, happy animal. An elephant princess indeed!

The elephant was angry because some dogs were barking at it.