This is the second of a 2-part series. Read the first part here
The elephant calf, a shivering knot of skin and bones, was pulled from the cold hut by forest department staff. In Bhawanipatna, the headquarters of Kalahandi district in Odisha, it now receives medicine and milk, its physical survival a testament to human intervention. But the pen that shelters it is a quiet cage, echoing with the absence of a mother’s rumble and the warmth of the herd. The department saved a life, yet in doing so, created an orphan—a gentle giant who will forever know the touch of caretakers, but will never again feel the guiding shadow of its mother or know the freedom of its rightful home. It is a living monument to a bittersweet rescue.
This poignant scene was the first act of a drama that would highlight a deep, systemic crisis. Forest department officials were alerted. But their response was lethargic, hamstrung by distance, bureaucracy, and perhaps a crippling lack of emergency protocol. A health team was promised, but the reported injury to the calf—a possible leg wound from a fall or weakness—deepened the urgency.
With a final, soul-rending trumpet that spoke of agonising choice, the mother turned. The herd, moving as one organism of shared grief, retreated deeper into the forest. Their departure was decisive, final. They took with them the map of home, the language of touch and rumble, the entire world the calf knew.
In the sudden, eerie quiet they left behind, the “rescue” could now procedurally begin. The human world moved in. The calf, in a state of profound secondary shock, was examined, lifted, and loaded. The familiar, comforting scent of its mother and the herd was overwhelmed by diesel, sweat, and sterile equipment. It was taken not to Nandankanan, but to a closer care facility in Bhawanipatna.
The official version could now claim success: a vulnerable animal secured, medically treated, and placed in custody. The forest department had fulfilled its procedural duty. The crowd had been appeased. The calf was alive.
But the counter-story, the true story, unfolded in silence. In Bhawanipatna, the calf received antibiotics, glucose, and a soft bed of hay. Its physical chill was treated. Yet it stood in a concrete pen, a deafening echo chamber for its own confused cries. It heard gates clang, not the symphony of the forest. It was fed formula that lacked the unique chemical signature of its mother’s milk—a signature that was also a promise of identity and belonging.
The mother, somewhere in the fragmented forests of Kalahandi, now carried an unseen wound. Elephants grieve. She would remember the scent left behind, the sound of a whimper swallowed by human noise. Her milk would dry up, a physiological echo of her loss.
The incident, therefore, was not a rescue but a tragic exchange. A short-term crisis—a cold, injured calf with its family fervently waiting—was traded for a long-term tragedy: a physically stabilised orphan with a spiritual amnesia. The department won on paper. But the calf, now a permanent ward of human care, would never, ever see his mother again. His survival was a monument to a clumsy, noisy compassion that had, in its urge to save a life, irrevocably broken the very thing that made that life worth living. The victory was administrative; the loss was ecological, profound, and forever.
The official report will state that the operation was a success. It will list facts: the safe extraction of a distressed elephant calf from a dilapidated hut near Kalahandi; its successful transport to the care facility in Bhawanipatna; the dispersal of the herd to ensure public safety. It will commend the forest department for its eventual intervention. The narrative crafted for the public is one of heroic human rescue, a triumph of order over chaos, of science over wilderness. The baby elephant is alive. Therefore, the department won.
But the forest does not read reports. It knows a different truth, written not in ink but in the seismic silence of a broken bond, in the scent of a mother’s milk fading on the wind, replaced by the sterile smell of antiseptic and straw.
This is the counter story. It is not a tale of human victory, but of an orphanhood manufactured by good intentions and catastrophic noise. It is the story of the unseen wound, the one no medical chart at Bhawanipatna can record: the severing of the universe for a three-month-old soul.
The forest officials arrived not as stealthy guardians, but as an extension of the crowd, their authority swallowed by the cacophony. The plan, perhaps, was logical on paper: secure the area, assess the calf, and prepare for transport. But there was no protocol for quietening a human storm. The “huge crowd noise and pressure” they returned due to was not an external force; it was the echo of their own society’s inability to hold space for silence, for a non-human drama to unfold at its own sacred pace.
And then, the rupture. A sudden surge, a collective shout, a flare of light—the precise trigger lost in the noise. For the mother elephant, it was the final, deafening translation of threat. The calculus of instinct shifted. The slow, patient rescue by her own kind was no longer viable. The survival of the herd itself now seemed in jeopardy. With a trumpet that was not anger, but the pure, distilled sound of agony—a sound that split the cold air and lodged itself in the chests of all who heard it—she turned. The herd, moving as one body of shared despair, retreated. Their departure was not a slow, hopeful lingering; it was a decisive, tragic withdrawal into the green depths. They took with them the map of home, the language of touch and rumble, the security of the matriarch’s shadow.
The “rescue” could then proceed. In the sudden, eerie quiet left by the herd’s departure, the humans moved in. The calf, already weakened, was now shrouded in a new, profound shock. The familiar scent of its mother was overwhelmed by diesel, sweat, and synthetic fabric. The gentle probe of a familiar trunk was replaced by the clinical touch of human hands. It was loaded, not onto the warm, rolling back of a family member, but into the cold, rattling metal belly of a truck. The journey to Bhawanipatna, hailed as a success, was a voyage into existential oblivion.
In Bhawanipatna, the calf is indeed being taken care of. It receives antibiotics for its physical chill, glucose for its energy, a soft bed of hay. The staff may be kind, dedicated even. They will note its intake, its temperature, and its gradual physical stabilisation. They will call it a victory.
But what of the other healing? Who administers the medicine for the loss of a universe? For an elephant, the mother is not just a caregiver; she is the centre of gravity. She is the library of survival knowledge—which plants to eat, which water is safe, how to read the wind for danger. She is the source of emotional regulation, her rumbles a constant, soothing bass note that tells the calf, You are safe, you belong, you are. The herd is a moving fortress and a school. Play-fighting with cousins builds strength; walking in the dust-kicked up by elders imprints migratory routes deep in the subconscious.
In Bhawanipatna, the calf has none of this. It stands in a pen, a concrete echo chamber for its own confused cries. It hears not the symphony of the forest—the rustle of sal leaves, the chorus of insects, the multimodal language of its kin—but the clang of gates, the hum of generators, the alien speech of humans. It is fed a formula that sustains the body but does not carry the unique chemical signature of its mother’s milk, a signature that is also a promise of identity. It is an inmate in a well-meaning asylum, its every need met except the one need that defines elephantness: connection.
The forest department “won” because it achieved its operational objective: securing a vulnerable animal. But this is a Pyrrhic victory, bought at a price paid entirely by the innocent. They have traded a short-term crisis—a cold, injured calf with its family fervently waiting—for a long-term tragedy: a physically healthy orphan with a spiritual amnesia, forever cut off from the culture that birthed it.
The mother, meanwhile, carries her own unseen wound. Elephants grieve. They have been observed returning to the bones of their dead, touching them gently with their trunks, standing in silent vigil. What echo of that lost morning haunts her now? The memory of a scent left behind, the sound of a whimper swallowed by human noise. Her milk will dry up, a physiological pain mirroring the emotional one. The herd’s social fabric, torn by the forced abandonment, may bear a scar of collective trauma. Their trust in the edges of their world, already frayed by farmland, has been shattered by the very beings who now claim to be their saviours.
This counter story forces us to confront uncomfortable questions about the geometry of compassion. Our compassion is often linear and possessive: see a problem, seize it, fix it. The elephant’s world, and indeed a deeper ecological compassion, is circular and contextual: see a problem, understand its place in the web, and intervene with minimal disruption. Our urge to “do something” became a violent act of doing too much, too loudly.
The systemic failure in Kalahandi was not just the delayed arrival of a veterinarian or the DFO’s absence. It was a failure of imagination and a failure of crowd control. It was the inability to understand that the first and most critical medicine required that morning was space—physical and auditory space for the elephants’ own profound rescue operation to have a chance. Where were the quiet perimeters? The community elders enlisted to calm the crowd? The understanding that the best tools in that moment might have been silence, patience, and distance?
The Wildlife (Protection) Act speaks of protection from hunting and trade. But who protects a calf from the trauma of well-intentioned severance? Who protects the sacred dialogue between a mother and her young from the deafening static of human anxiety?
The path forward, illuminated by this tragedy, must be paved with humility. It requires:
Protocols of Silence: Emergency response plans for such conflicts must prioritise de-escalation of human activity as step one. Trained community volunteers must be empowered to manage crowds, enforce quiet zones, and act as buffers, not spectators.
The Primacy of Reunification: Every intervention must have, as its north star, the goal of keeping or returning the calf to its herd. On-site stabilisation and covert monitoring to allow for natural retrieval must be the gold standard. Capture and transport should be the absolute last resort, undertaken only when the herd has demonstrably and permanently abandoned the calf—not when we have scared them away.
Measuring the Right Victory: Success cannot be measured merely by the heartbeat in Bhawanipatna. It must be measured by the integrity of the bond preserved. A success would have been a quiet withdrawal, a watchful guard from a distance, and the heart-stopping, glorious sight of a mother emerging at dusk to lead her shivering baby home.
The little calf in Bhawanipatna will never see his mother again. He will live, but he will not live as he was meant to. He is a monument to a certain human failure—not of malice, but of noise; not of indifference, but of an overwhelming, clumsy love that suffocates what it seeks to save.
The forest department’s report may claim victory. But in the hills of Kalahandi, a mother walks a silent, endless patrol, her trunk brushing the air for a scent that is gone. And in a pen in Bhawanipatna, a baby elephant stands, hearing in his bones a ghost-trumpet, a call to a home he will never know, waiting for a warm shadow that will never again fall over him. This is not winning. This is the deepest, most resonant kind of loss.
Chitta Ranjan Pani is an independent researcher of livelihood and natural resource governance
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth