When Al Qaeda visits Valparai

Valparai

is a lesser-known, peaceful little hill town in Tamil Nadu, that stays hidden behind misty clouds for most part of the year.

It hardly makes news and barely attracts the kind of tourists that its neighbour Ooty does. So when I overheard a worried group of tea plantation workers of Valparai speak in hushed tones about a possible attack by Al Qaeda on their sleepy town, I couldn’t help chuckling. “Terrorists in Valparai, really?!” I laughed. “Ayyo...ille amma... not terrorists of the human kind; but terrorist elephants!” Muthu, my trekking guide said. And then the story unfolded:
Al Qaeda is the moniker given to an elephant family living in the Nilgiris. They traverse the lush forests of Madhumalai, Anamala and the neighbouring hills as they move about in a herd of seven. Occasionally, they take a detour and wander into the villages on the fringes of the forests, mostly at night. And when they do, all hell breaks loose. The local ration shop was ransacked a while ago, I was told. Another time, they attacked a couple of houses, breaking open doors, destroying furniture, and tossing around gas cylinders like they were toys. The little village was particularly scared this time because a woman working at a tea plantation was reportedly killed; they suspect it was the rowdy herd’s doing. But despite all the fear that Al Qaeda caused, the villagers weren’t angry. ‘What can they do…? We’ve taken away their homeland…,’ said Muthu, explaining the full story:

As recently as 20 years ago, much of Valparai’s private land holdings were forest land. Acres of evergreen forests were cleared over years to make way for manicured terraces for tea plantation. Sprawling bungalows of planters popped up at various tea estates, around which shanty towns and tiny villages filled with plantation workers mushroomed. As the forests receded, its inmates kept getting pushed further inside. Most of the animals just learned to cope for lack of choice, some perished and some disappeared forever. But elephants, they are a different breed altogether. And this I learnt from Sunita, the manager of my guest house, who has been living in the Nilgiris pretty much all her adult life. She narrated the story of another elephant herd that visits a planter’s bungalow almost every year:

“These elephants have been appearing here every year for as long as I can remember. They walk up to the bungalow, and walk in through the gate, march around the lawns, uproot some trees, and walk on straight ahead, and head out from the back gate. It is like an annual ritual for them. Last year, a new family had moved in to the 80-year-old bungalow. They were caught unawares when their jumbo visitors turned up, and in the chaos and cacophony that ensued, the agitated elephants turned violent. They tore down the front door and walked right through the house, ransacking pretty much everything in sight. After a while though, they calmed down and walked right out of the back gate,” Sunita said, claiming that this could be a result of their ‘genetic memory’.

Elephants are extremely intelligent creatures, with excellent memory. Experts have found that baby elephants sometimes remember places they’ve never seen before, and know exactly where to go from there. This they attribute to genetic memory —the ability to remember things solely by virtue of inheriting the memory of it at birth. And this was the point Sunita was trying to make:

“This herd of elephants might belong to a family that has been walking along this path for years. Over decades, the forests made way for plantations, guest houses, roadways... But their memory tells them this is where their ancestors came. And they want to tread that path, no matter what. It is no fault of theirs.”

Sunita seems to think that they pass down ancestral wisdom, memory, fears… because they are all essential for the survival of future generations. For instance, elephants are naturally peace-loving. But, if an elephant has seen anyone in her herd being hurt or killed by a human being, she will always remember it. And then, she will not only be wary around humans but also teach her offspring that humans can mean danger. So, does the ‘Al Qaeda’ have a collective genetic memory, filled with fear, anger and a sense of revenge? Is that what makes them so averse to humans, I wondered.
If so, who is the real Al Qaeda of the two — them or us?