COIMBATORE: Watch out for the elephant herd next time you drive on the Kotagiri road. No, these are not jumbos in flesh and blood but a sculpture at a museum dedicated to the gentle giants. The Tamil Nadu government has chosen Mettupalayam as the site of the first-of-its-kind centre as Coimbatore has a thriving elephant population.
Vezham, meaning elephant, will be the go-to place for animal lovers. The 2000-sq ft centre offers information about the evolution of African and Asian elephants. Its walls feature paintings of elephants, details on their behaviour patterns and snaps of jumbos taken by wildlife photographers.
Drawn on the floor is a 3D image of an elephant standing in a river. What's more, the place reverberates with six trumpeting sounds. The centre is surrounded by a three-acre elephant-themed park.
"We have displayed interesting facts about elephants like how fast they run and how big they grow," said Cyril Rufus, one of the consultants working for Vezham. Work on the museum is nearing completion and it is likely to be opened soon.
A herd consisting of a male, female and calf is sculpted at the Vezham park, depicting a scene from the Tamil literary work Agananooru, where the tusker brings grass for the cow elephant which is tired after giving birth.
I Anwardeen, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (APCCF), put forth the idea of the museum to educate people on human-animal conflicts. District forest officer D Venkatesh and Mettupalayam forest range officer S Palaniraja are members of the project. Officials expressed hope that the centre would generate revenue as tourists heading to Nilgiris are sure to make a stopover.