Seventy-year-old Parbati Barua remembers the story her mother told her when she was 10: “When you were one month and 17 days old, your father placed you on the back of an elephant. You had a smile on your face. You fell in love with elephants instantly.” This year, as the government awarded her the Padma Shri for her career as the first female mahout in India, Barua—who belongs to the royal family of Gauripur, in Dhubri district in Assam—felt her life come a full circle. “My work has finally received official recognition,” she says with a smile, adding, “This is also a recognition of the enormous amount of work mahouts put in. It is a 24/7 job.”
Her father, Prakritish Chandra Barua, had a stable of 40 elephants at the back of the house near the river Gadadhar. “Baba was my guru. He taught me how to look after and care for elephants,” says Barua. She remembers accompanying her father to the stables, and his gentle advice to the 10-year-old, “Give them love. They will love you in return.”
One of eight siblings, it was only she who took after her father and has dedicated her life to looking after elephants. After observing the work of mahouts for several years, she became one in 1972. “The best way to learn is through practical experience,” says the septuagenarian as she strokes her elephant Lakhimala’s trunk and feeds her tender branches of trees.
“Sometimes, when it is freezing, I give her boiled rice and rum because it helps to keep the elephant warm,” says Barua, adding, “Elephants show affection through their eyes. You can gauge it only when you spend time with them. It is a silent language.”
Asked whether elephants are better than human beings, she promptly says, “Hundred per cent. Human beings can be cruel. Also, like humans, each elephant has a unique personality. There are introverted and extroverted elephants. There are leaders and followers. Some are very social. Most are benevolent and kind-hearted, and have enormous patience. Only when they reach the limit of their patience do they get angry. They love children, and will never harm them.”
While she has spent a lifetime with the gentle beasts, what has been her most memorable experience? “It was when I lassoed an elephant in the Kachugaon forest for the first time. I was only 14 years old,” she says with pride. She still remembers the day when the forest department from West Bengal’s Medinipur district reached out to her for an emergency.
A herd of over 50 elephants went off course and were wandering towards human habitation. Unable to get the situation under control, the authorities turned to Barua, who with her team and four elephants expertly guided the tuskers back to the jungle. “This is my destiny,” says the woman as she looks at Lakhimala chewing on banana leaves.