ABSTRACT
Kaaroor’s episodes on elephants and mahouts carried an authentic touch as his root family lived very near the Ettumanur Siva temple known for its festivities, which invariably involved elephants as in almost all Kerala temples. In ‘Sir and the Mahout,’ a mahout seeing his mahout-uncle being horribly crushed by a tusker becomes its mahout with a vow to finish him off before the first death anniversary of the uncle. But that does not happen: He gradually gets emotionally attached to the elephant and forgets his vow just as the teacher who is listening to his story is emotionally attached to the little ones in his classroom. The mahout and the school teacher both are driven by sentiments that keep them attached to their vocations. The episode ‘A Mahout’s Life,’ besides documenting a tragedy, shows how Mahout Koman’s nephew (sister’s son) took a vow to bring back the rogue tusker under control, the sub-text here being that mahouts formed a Hindu occupational group, with even their women participating in the elephant-care culture of the days past.
