Madukkarai along the centuries-old elephant corridor running across the Coimbatore-Palakkad highway has now become a flashpoint of human-animal conflict.

Madukkarai forests in Coimbatore lining the rolling Western Ghats is a chosen habitat of elephants who continue to walk the path and discover new routes unfazed by electric fences skirting plantations, mushrooming granite quarries, cement factories and walled educational institutions.

The herds of tuskers come to Madukkarai to feed on sumptuous crops around that area, circumvent blocked paths, and march on relentlessly when driven away from their own home – the now human settlements.

In a ritualistic exercise, hundreds of people stand at a safe distance to see them emerge from the reserved forests onto the highway and nimbly climb over the divider to cross over to the surrounding plantations on the other side.

The Madukkarai elephants’ story of heroism, chivalry and subjugation caught the imagination of the people and has been captured through the lens of wildlife enthusiast and elephant watcher, T Gunasekaran.

Speaking to Covai Post, he said, “An elephant’s foot does not even hurt grass. The spongy, pitted sole helps it move silently on different terrain, and when it steps on grass, it just flattens it without destroying.”

Madukkarai forests have been his trekking trail for 18 years and he has taken part in about six annual elephant census. The forests had been the childhood haunt of the 42-year-old, who started watching and documenting elephants in Madukkarai for the past six years.

“It’s my observation that elephants started arriving at Madukkarai with the beginning of gas being used as fuel.

People stopped going to forests to collect wood, and with the decrease in the presence of people, elephants started inhabiting forests.”

“As a child, I never saw elephants in the forests,” said Gunasekaran, who runs a studio at the mouth of the forest.

In an amazing migration strategy, a herd of nine elephants came to Madukkarai on January 10, 2005 with the group returning on the same date in 2006 with seven animals, and in 2007 with four.

There was no elephant movement after 2008 with a herd returning only in 2013.

Gunasekaran says a trained animal watcher will recognise the elephants that return to the forests each year. “They can be identified with the help of the folds in the ear, patches on their skin, and also by their behaviour and attitude.”

And just why are elephants leaving the reserved forests to feed on surrounding plantations?

Gunasekaran said: “Elephants have realized that the crops the farmer grows, fed with urea and other fertilizers, are tastier. Also crops such as corn, plantain and jackfruit lure the jumbos into these plantations.”

“Such crops are not good for the elephants’ health, which must eat food that is not human-managed. In short, it’s equal to the fast food,” he said with a laugh.

It’s important to build a barricade around the reserved forests so that elephants are stopped from venturing into plantations, killing people on provocation and in turn being hunted down.

A sad example is Madukkarai Maharaja or Kattaiyan as the locals endearingly called it, died at the end of a unrelenting nine-day long chase by officials who wanted to drive it away into the forests. The 20-year-old healthy male tusker, which damaged crops and killed a forest guard, was chased, isolated, tranquilised, subdued and later pronounced dead.

“I saw Maharaja at Manjapallam in Madukkarai for the first time two years ago. I spotted him on various other occasions when it befriended two other of its clan, led them into the forests and walked behind to protect them; I saw it intelligently change track when blocked.”

“Since we were continuously tracking it, I think it felt our presence. It once raised its trunk in our direction and walked away,” said Gunasekaran, his eyes welling up.

Add to this, the deaths of two other elephants on Coimbatore’s rail tracks recently, which included the mother elephant and the grieving calf that shook the consciousness of the people.

Gunasekharan captures the elephants in his camera only when the pachyderms briefly step onto the highway, so as to not disturb them with the flash.

He accompanied tribals along with forest officials in the early days of elephant watch. “They are gentle creatures and when disturbed, turn aggressive.”

Elephants warn many times before they attack people, he said. They trumpet loudly, tap their feet and flap their ears vigorously before they attack.

Most of the time men are attacked and killed as they unknowingly come in the way of the elephant, which moves stealthily. Elephant attacks happen mostly in the dark, early morning or during the night, and it is hard to see an elephant at that time.

“I learnt from the tribals that elephants can smell us out and move away. I trained to stay away from the air waves that connect us and watch them from behind.”

Elephants move around in groups, but when inside forests they are loners and stay at least 400 metres away from each other. “They have a strict sense of privacy, and at the same time socialize when they feed and play in brooks and ponds.”

The elephants of Madukkarai travel long distances. For instance the elephants we tracked travelled the NH47, state highway roads and the Pollachi road on a daily basis.

“They learn fast, too. Once, in order to prevent elephants entering plantations forest officials had trenches dug across the elephant path. But the animals crossed that too, by helping each other.”

“My dream is simple. I wish to get society’s attention to the plight of these animals that are being chased away from their home, and to help secure the forests for them.”