I wake up to the melodious call of the whistling thrush. This medium sized black bird seems to be an enigma to bird lovers. As its call glides through the dense foliage, one is struck by the living embodiment of un-spoilt nature at its best. Listening to this elusive bird is soothing to the soul & echoes across the dense canopy of the deciduous forest.

Our bedroom window stares directly at the thick impenetrable branches of the fruit bearing berry trees. Theres a cacophony of birdcalls in the early morning hours.

As the first rays gently touch the fringes of the tall perennial trees, the roosting avians restlessly converge into a combination of tones contextually conflicting with one another.

The coppersmith is unfazed by the others & relentlessly continues with its staccato call. I get fleeting glimpses of barbets, jungle babblers, flycatchers, parakeets, flower peckers & robins. The gentle breeze lulls the spirit & I sit mesmerized in the balcony trying to figure out one bird from the other. This is a heaven for bird watchers & I sip my morning cuppa happily trying to recognise the various birds.

On todays itinerary is the Dubare elephant camp in the first half of the day. An opportunity of a lifetime awaits me : mingling with the great asian pachyderms & a chance to give them a good scrub as they enjoy their morning bath.

The Dubare elephant camp is situated about 45kms from Madikeri in Karnataka where I have my base camp. Madikeri is in the Coorg district & a more populous place than the other towns in the Coorg region. I had gone to Mangalore & hence took a cab from there to cover the 132 kms distance to Madikeri.

Across from the river Cauvery in Kodagu in the Coorg District, the Dubare Elephant camp is accessible either by a ferry or a walk through the river from the shallow segment of the water body.

My adrenalin begins to flow on seeing the elephants waddle in the river water & I head straight towards a matriarch called Malathi. Shes forty & amongst the mature occupants of the camp. There are about 14 elephants in all including 2 adolescents & one baby elephant called Parshuram.

Parshu is a naughty darling & nonchalantly ignores commands given by his mahout in his playfulness. Hes extremely intelligent too coz he recognizes his mahouts moods judging his authoritative decibels & yields to being utterly subservient when confronted.

Malathi is another story. She appears an epitome of patience & wisdom. She stares at me as I flip her large flapped ears & reach out & scrub behind them. She seems to respond delightfully as she adjusts positions to give me access to the most comfortable part that needs a good scrub. This gentle giant intently listens as I softly speak to her as I scrub, splash, squish, splosh, slosh & again scrub. Her luminous long lashed beautifully emotive eyes seem to understand that I mean well.

I keep reminding myself that these are wild animals & yet there is this connection with Malathi. She seems to tolerate my presence with such ease that I feel blessed.

After the bath, the pachyderms head to the feeding corner & the Homo Sapiens are herded to witness the feeding. A concoction of barley & other cereals is molded into large chunks & the elephants are fed a couple of these huge pinkish edible balls.

I had befriended Malathis mahout, Ananda a scraggy underweight man with rough unkempt curly hair. He immoderately exceeds the appropriate bounds & spells out our friendships monetary value, which I shamelessly relent to. After all, hes my ticket to being close to Malathi.
He stealthily brings two pieces of jaggery when the others have moved away & places them in my palm to feed the two mammoths who are eagerly sniffing the air as they smell their favourite snack. In two neat swipes, the jaggery disappears into the abyss that is capable of tucking in non-stop.

The feeding over, we are again herded towards a naturalist from the forest department who has a patiently standing elephant in tow. He explains the various aspects of elephant ecology & history. The average life span of an elephant is 70 years & the matriarchs & their calves live & wander together in herds.

The elephant is one of the few species in the animal kingdom where the male has to be in mast & female in heat to copulate. When in mast, the male secretes a foul smelling substance from a gland between its eyes & ears. This smell announces to the female elephants in the vicinity of the male tuskers condition.

After some weird FAQs by some over enthusiastic tourists, the by now bored naturalist excused himself & leaves us with two options. Go for an elephant ride or twiddle our thumbs for the next one hour counting the number of datura shrubs growing in the nearby environs.

I opt to count the thorn apple shrubs from the back of an elephant & head towards the elevated platform which is used to climb on to the elephant backs reducing any chances of unceremonious happenings.

One gets the feel of a Maharaja..errMaharani, riding these elephants. Its slow gait sways the occupants on its back like a slow moving pendulum. The ride over, its time to say good-bye to these great lovable beasts. I choose to traverse the Cauvery on my way back on foot through the sparsely flowing route.

After our activity manager from base camp is satisfied doing the head count we head back to Madikeri to our resort to spend the later half of the day luxuriating in man made comforts.