A mahout is an elephant rider, trainer, or keeper. Mahouts were used since antiquity for both civilian and military use. Traditionally, mahouts came from ethnic groups with generations of elephant keeping experience, with a mahout retaining his elephant throughout its working life or service years. Mahouts would often ride on a howdah placed on the back of their elephant.
Musth or must is a periodic condition in bull (male) elephants characterized by aggressive behavior and accompanied by a large rise in reproductive hormones.
The Surin Elephant Round-up is a cultural festival held every year in Surin Province, Isan, Thailand. Usually the event is organized during the third week of November on the weekend. The festival has its origins in the royal hunts which were conducted in Surin Province during medieval times. The indigenous residents of Surin, the Kuy, have been traditional practitioners of corralling elephants and training them as working animals. When the Ayutthaya Kingdom came into power these hunts were converted into a public extravaganza and wild elephants were replaced with tame ones. The festival, in its contemporary form, was first organized in the 1960s when civil war in Cambodia and the steady decline in economic value of elephants forced the elephant handlers (mahouts) to seek occupations in the entertainment and tourism industry.
Sabu Dastagir was an Indian actor who later gained United States citizenship. Throughout his career he was credited under the name Sabu and is primarily known for his work in films during the 1930s–1940s in Britain and the United States. He was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Elephants found in Kerala, the Indian elephants, are one of three recognized subspecies of the Asian elephant. Since 1986, Asian elephants have been listed as endangered by IUCN as the population has declined by at least 50% over the last three generations, estimated to be 25,600 to 32,750 in the wild. The species is pre-eminently threatened by habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. Along with a large population of wild elephants, Kerala has more than seven hundred captive elephants. Most of them are owned by temples and individuals. They are used for religious ceremonies in and around the temples, and some churches, and a few elephants work at timber yards.
Elephant Boy is a 1937 British adventure film starring Sabu in his film debut. Documentary filmmaker Robert J. Flaherty, who produced some of the Indian footage, and supervising director Zoltan Korda, who completed the film, won the Best Director Award at the Venice Film Festival. The film was made at the London Films studios at Denham, and in Mysore, India, and is based on the story "Toomai of the Elephants" from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894).
Punnathurkotta is a fort and former palace located in Kottapadi, about 3 km from the Guruvayoor Sree Krishna Temple, in Thrissur District of Kerala State in South India.
Khan Kluay is a 2006 Thai computer-animated adventure film set in Ayutthaya-era Siam about a Thai elephant who wanders away from his mother and becomes the war elephant for King Naresuan. It is based on the story Chao Phraya Prap Hongsawadee by Ariya Jintapanichkarn. The film took three years to make, and was released on May 18, 2006 in Thailand. In 2008, the film was released as The Blue Elephant in the United States on September 2, and as Jumbo in India in December 25.
Mark Roland Shand was a British travel writer and conservationist, as well as the brother of Queen Camilla. Shand was the author of four travel books and as a BBC conservationist, appeared in documentaries related to his journeys, most of which centered on the survival of elephants. His book Travels on My Elephant became a bestseller and won the Travel Writer of the Year Award at the British Book Awards in 1992. He was the chairman of Elephant Family, a wildlife foundation, which he co-founded in 2002.
Drona was one of the lead Dasara Elephants of the Jamboo Savari of Mysore Dasara. He carried the Golden Howdah for a record 18 years consecutive years between 1981 and 1997, before being electrocuted while grazing in 1998. Of all the carrier elephants since the 20th-century, he is considered the best "because he possessed an excellent ability to learn and correct himself".
Elephant polo is a variant of polo played while riding elephants. It is played in Nepal, Rajasthan (India), and Thailand. England and Scotland regularly field teams. Equipment consists of a standard polo ball and a 1.8 metres (5.9 ft) to 3 metres (9.8 ft) cane sticks with a polo mallet head on the end. The pitch is three-quarters of the length of a standard polo pitch, due to the lower speed of the elephants. Two people ride each elephant; the elephants are steered by mahouts, while the player tells the mahout which way to go and hits the ball.
A khedda or the Khedda system was a stockade trap for the capture of a full herd of elephants that was used in India; other methods were also used to capture single elephants. The elephants were driven into the stockade by skilled mahouts mounted on domesticated elephants. This method was practiced widely in North-east India, particularly in the state of Assam, mostly in South India, and in particular in the erstwhile Mysore State state.
Jumbo is a 2008 Indian 3D computer-animated adventure live-action film directed by Kompin Kemgumnird, produced by Percept Picture Company and features the voices of Akshay Kumar, Lara Dutta, Dimple Kapadia, Rajpal Yadav, Asrani, and Gulshan Grover. Jayveer Singh aka Jumbo, a little elephant, which tries to find his Father and the journey of finding his father made him a war elephant. The film is a Hindi remake and Hindi dubbed version of the 2006 Thai film Khan Kluay, which is based on "Chao Praya Prab Hongsawadee" by Ariya Jintapanichkarn.
Elephant Run is a young adult historical novel by Roland Smith, first published in 2007. It takes place mainly in Burma in the midst of World War II. The main character is Nicholas Freestone, a 14-year-old boy, tamed and simple, who is sent to live by his mother with his father on the family teak plantation, which requires toughness and strength, to escape the bombing in London. When the Japanese invade Burma, they take over the plantation, sending Nick's father, Jackson Theodore Freestone III, to a prison camp. Leaving Nick to escape and try to save his father with the help of some friends and with the danger of some enemies.
Hussein, an Entertainment is an early work written by Patrick O'Brian, published in 1938 under his birth name, Patrick Russ. The story takes place in India of the British Raj period and concerns the adventures of a young man named Hussein. The novel, called an Entertainment by O'Brian, follows Hussein's life from birth to his late teens. Though out of print for many years, Hussein was reprinted in the late 1990s under Patrick O'Brian's name. Kirkus UK stated at that time, this is a book "to read for the fun of the 'entertainment' and the light that it throws on the development of one of the great writers of historical fiction."
Phandi is an expert on lassoing a wild elephant in Mela shikar. A mahout becomes Phandi after passing a rigorous tests conducted by other phandis. Baro-phandi is equivalent to a master's degree in elephant capturing. Only a few can aspire to become a Baro-phandi. They are men of highest caliber, great courage and well steeped in elephant lore who enjoy iconic status in the folklore of the North-East India.
Astu: So Be It is a 2015 Indian Marathi-language film directed by the duo Sumitra Bhave and Sunil Suktankar, starring Mohan Agashe, Iravati Harshe, Milind Soman, and Amruta Subhash. The film tells the story of Chakrapani Shastri, a Sanskrit scholar who suffers from Alzheimer's disease.
Sangita Iyer is an Indian-born Canadian author, broadcast journalist, writer, biologist and documentary filmmaker. She is known for her advocacy on wildlife conservation, especially for wild elephants, and for exposing the atrocities against Asian elephants by religious institutions. Iyer has been featured in the BBC News. She is the founding executive director and president of the Voice for Asian Elephants Society, which was created in 2016 with the aim of protecting wild and captive elephants of India.
Kottur Elephant Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Centre located near Kappukadu in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala is an elephant sanctuary and rehabilitation centre. Started in 2006 as an elephant sanctuary, the Kerala government announced a project in 2019 to expand it as an elephant rehabilitation centre with international standards. When completed, it will become the largest rehabilitation centre for the elephants in the world. It is also the first rehabilitation centre for elephants in India, constructed at an estimated cost of ₹105 crores. The centre is spread across 176 hectares of forest and currently have 16 elephants, with a capacity to accommodate 50 elephants in future after completion.
Gajakesariyogam is a 1990 Indian Malayalam-language film directed by P. G. Viswambharan and starring Innocent, K. P. A. C. Lalitha, and Mukesh. The film is about the struggles Nair faces after purchasing an elephant named Sreevidya from a North Indian circus company that only knows Hindi. This film was one of the many films in which Innocent and K.P.A.C Lalitha play an on-screen couple. The film became a box office success.
