In Tinsukia: singing lessons for Birbol

An elephant never forgets his phandi (trainer), says Sarat Moran. He has trained more than 90 elephants. In the pachyderm’s lifetime, it will come running to its phandi even if it is in a dense jungle amidst a herd of wild elephants, he adds.

At the pilkhana – a temporary camp for the training – the newborn calf is slowly introduced to human touch, repeated over days until it becomes routine. “Even a little pain during training feels like a lot,” says Sarat.

As the days progress, the number of people around the calf keep increasing till the point where the animal is no longer uncomfortable.

Sarat and the other trainers sing soothing songs to the pachyderm during the training, narrating the story of friendship between the animal and its trainer.

After a period, the ropes that restrict the animal’s movements are slowly decreased and then removed altogether. It takes many ropes to train an elephant, say the trainer, and each has a distinct use and name. The elephant is also befriended with melodious songs that create their own spell. This trust was used in earlier times to capture wild elephants, and also in hunting.

Expert trainer Sarat Moran says he became a phandi as, “my village is in the forest and it has a lot of elephants. We have played with them since childhood. That’s how I learnt to train them.”

The job of training elephants calls for teamwork. “The leader of the pack is the phandi . Then come the assistants known as luhotiya , mahout and ghasi . At least five people are required to control such a huge animal. We also need to gather food,” adds Sarat. People from the village help them.

He lives in Torani, a small village in Tinsukia district of Assam, bordered by the Upper Dihing reserve forest. The Moran community’s skills at training have been acclaimed for centuries. They were once known to capture and train elephants for war. An indigenous community, they live in a few districts in upper Assam and also in adjoining Arunachal Pradesh.

Today the taming of wild elephants is illegal, but newborn calves still need to be made familiar with human touch and phandis like Sarat and his team are paid upto Rs. one lakh for this work which can take anything from a month to three months.

The camp, set up outside the village, becomes a centre of attraction. People arrive to seek blessings from the elephant whom they consider as a living God. His trainer, the phandi is considered a priest, and is not allowed to travel anywhere, not even home, or eat food cooked by others. This practice is known as suwa. Sarat says he sends cash to his family in the hands of children who come to see the elephant.

This documentary is set in the time of Magh Bihu, the harvest festival when celebrations include the roasting of a duck cooked with ash gourd. “We’re killing two birds with one stone. That is, we’re training the elephant and celebrating Maagh Bihu. We are roasting the duck. We will eat it together,” says Sarat.

Despite the celebration all around, deep down he fears that this tradition will soon die out as young boys are not taking to the profession, wary of the long learning period. He tries to motivate the youth in the village to come and learn and keep the tradition alive. “I am slowly losing my strength. I tell the village boys that they should learn this. I am not a jealous person, I want everyone to learn, and our knowledge passes on,” he says.