The Four legged Giant Lumberjacks of Kerala

Elephants are common in Kerala. The elephant is the state animal and appears on the emblem of the government of Kerala. Elephants are an integral part of the state’s culture and are a feature of the grandest festivals of Kerala. Some of the elephants have even gone on to become superstars and have achieved celebrity status here.

However, that's not the only way in which elephants are employed here. Unfortunately, most of the seven to nine hundred and odd domesticated elephants in Kerala live a life of hard forced labour.

Having written about lumberjacks in my last post, I thought it only fair to cover another side to the lumbering industry in Kerala. This time the lumberjack in question is a four legged one.

As mentioned in my previous post, the rubber estates are crammed for space with rubber saplings or trees planted at even distance from each other. When a tree needs to be felled and transported from within this limited space, there is little heavy machinery can do without causing collateral damage. There is a need for something strong but manoeuvrable to do this kind of specialised work and that's where elephants fit in.

It is surprising what kinds of weight an elephant can shift, or rather, are made to shift. An average elephant weighs about 3000 – 5000 Kg, and is about 3 m tall.  An elephant is reported to match the strength of 80 men and has a brain 4 times the size of a human. With so much strength and mental capacity, I wonder why such a magnificent creature is still a slave to humans. Unfortunately, an elephant doesn't know its own strength!

As you can see from the picture above, an elephant does its master’s bidding not out of love and devotion, but out of fear and intimidation. Brute force and evil human intelligence is used to subjugate an elephant.

A domestic elephant usually has 3 mahouts, also called as Papaans. The papaans control the elephant  with simple tools. His tools consists of the Thotti - a barbed hook, 3.5 feet in length and 3 inches thick; the valiya kol (long pole), 10.5 feet in length and 5.5 inches in thickness; and cheru kol (short pole).

The thotti is used to prod and stab the elephant, a common method used in training the elephant and making it fear its trainer. The Kols are used to beat it and make it obey the mahout’s wishes. In addition to this, there is also the ever present chain which is tied around its body and on its feet. The elephant is made to carry this as it walks.

This chain is used to tether the animal to a tree, should it be angered and the mahout lose control. It is mostly females which are made to work as males develop a periodical hormone surge called as “Musth”, during which they are extremely aggressive and difficult to control.

However, the mahouts believe that the best way to deal with this phenomena is to starve the elephants and weaken it through torture. It is thought that such acts reduce the duration of its Musth.

If an elephant is too old to work, it is often sent out to work in the tourist industry, for elephant rides and as festival display props. All this potential revenue makes owning an elephant a lucrative deal. A sad life it is indeed for the working elephant.

However, the domestic elephant is legally protected by law and there are a set of guidelines (THE KERALA CAPTIVE ELEPHANTS (Management and Maintenance) RULES, 2003) that have to be followed to ensure  the well being of the pachyderm. This includes everything from the permissible workload to conditions for its transport, maintenance and  even giving it a bath everyday! Whether these rules are strictly enforced is questionable.

In the past ages, elephants were considered to be a sign of wealth and prestige and was owned only by landlords. These people had enough wealth to ensure the well being of the animals. The Papaans of yesteryears cared for their animals, respected and understood them. In fact, there even existed a branch of ayurveda, dealing exclusively with the treatment of elephants (Hasthyaayurvedam). All trainers and mahouts were required to be knowledgeable in this science.

However, in today’s world, all that has changed. Papaans today are unqualified and have little understanding of elephants. Moreover, a lot of them are drunks and addicts. It is the Papaan’s themselves who ill-treat the animal the most. It is sad indeed to see such a dignified creature, one that has no natural predators or challengers, being treated so badly today as just another commercial investment to achieve man’s selfish needs. The elephants are very much a symbol of Kerala and I don't wish for that to change, however, I do wish that the elephant is given its due dignity and respect and the mahouts give it the compassion and caring that was once the hallmark of their predecessors….and oh yes, please let us leave lumbering to the real lumberjacks!

The Lumberjacks of Kerala

Being in the UK for 5 years, I was just about getting used to the stringent health and safety rules there. A simple task was made mammoth in order to ensure that all aspects of risk were thought of and precautionary measures accounted for. Besides this, manual labour has  become something of a rarity there. If possible, all manual tasks have been allotted to machines and more are being designed to replace men. Being back here in India, its amazing to see just what real manual labour is Like. No safety gear, no accident planning, no insurance, no sophisticated equipment or machines, just raw muscle and strength. A recent tree felling operation near home, gave me an opportunity to capture a few photographs of what is everyday practice, here in Kerala.

The lumberjacks of Kerala don't have uniform, they don't have helmets or overalls, no cranes or tractors, in fact, the chain-saw itself is a recent luxury addition to their armoury and only a few are confident enough use it without sawing their limbs off! Until recently they used hand-saws. Their main equipment consists of iron crowbars and ropes woven from coconut-husk fibre.

In fact, most, if not all of these men aren't even full-time lumberjacks. As you may be convinced, from looking at these images, this trade is not for all and involves back breaking work, lifting weight several times over what an average person can. Therefore, the average lumberjack is in only for the profit! Hard labour pays money (well even if its not great, its still better than average!).

An average days work involves felling and retrieving trees from inside rubber estates. A rubber estate is most often on a hill-side, and because the rubber trees need to be kept damage free, it is a tricky job to manoeuvre a heavy tree trunk from in between the other trees and load it onto a waiting truck. These men however, specialise in doing just that.

These lumberjacks pride themselves in accomplishing their job and it is astonishing to see the kind of weights they lift. I`m quite sure some of these men would put even professional Olympic weight lifters to shame!

Lifting such heavy logs is not only tough but dangerous too. It is now monsoon season, and the rains have made everything slippery. The ground beneath is wet and the mud is soft. Often the mud gives way especially when a rat had dug a burrow beneath. All these dangers involve extreme care but these men seem to take in in their stride.

Trees are really heavy, it is only through coordinated effort that the strength of these men can be pooled to accomplish their task. A feature to note is how these men coordinate tasks with precision. An uncoordinated move by one person can cause grievous harm to him and others if a log slips or rolls unexpectedly.

It is through chants and songs that  coordination is maintained. When the lead singer calls out “eaahlooo..”, the task begins, with the rest of the men heaving, or pulling as they reply in unison “ehlaaaaambo…!”. this chant is repeated for every new thrust or lift. There are other chants such as this which seemed to be made up as they got on with the job.

As I was taking these pictures, the lead workman came up to me and requested to see the images. Shortly after, the whole group was crowding around my camera. The lead workman then humbly requested that I take a few shots of his vehicle too. Clearly it was something he owned with pride.

The vehicle itself is not much to write home about. This Tata 407 pickup mini-truck, can carry slightly more than 2 tonnes. However, it is a proven workhorse and an extremely manoeuvrable one at that. It is not only the foreman’s source of income, it is also his personal transport too.

When the need arises, and when circumstances permit, the vehicle doubles up as the most powerful lumberjack of them all.

When a tricky piece of tree trunk needs to be dislodged from a unworkable position and brought forward to a better location, a rope suspended from the tree to the truck and a bit of the accelerator does the trick.

The work continues with a lot of noise and suggestions from all involved, but before you know it, a huge tree is all cut up and loaded to be packed off to a timber mill. The men are all cheerful. The work is a part of their life, they do it while they still can. When this tree was all done they weren't finished, they headed off to collect another four more trees in even trickier locations.

The men were ready to leave, but not before a few more photos with their beloved vehicle. The foreman specifically requested that I take a shot of him at the wheel so here goes!

These men are crude, but they are genuine. I`m convinced that it wont be long before this trade disappears, to be replaced by light and heavy machinery that will eliminate the hazards and the hard labour. Perhaps man will one day forget that work like this was an everyday thing.  Its not long before the average man in this sleepy village will sit in an office chair all day long and accuse his employer of occupational hazards causing him a bad back (as it now happens in the UK)! Perhaps one day we will tell our children that there existed men who could lift tree trunks with their bare hands, men who were happy at the end of the day and enjoyed doing the work they do!

P.S.

I was wondering if the term “lumberjack” was an appropriate term for these seemingly disorganised workers, however, reading about lumberjacks on Wikipedia put me more at ease. Here's what's on there.

“A lumberjack is a worker in the logging industry who performs the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to a bygone era (before 1945) when hand tools were used in harvesting trees principally from virgin forest. Because of its historical ties, the term lumberjack has become ingrained in popular culture through folklore, media, and spectator sports. The work was difficult, dangerous, intermittent, low-paying, and primitive in living conditions, but the men built a traditional culture that celebrated strength, masculinity, confrontation with danger, and resistance to modernization.”

Where has our Monsoon gone?

A question I get asked frequently is “How are you managing the heat of Kerala after returning from the cold climate in UK?”. I reply that I`m doing just fine, after all, I have spent more time in Kerala than my total years in UK. However, I have to admit, this has been one of the most uncomfortable years weather-wise with temperatures rising into the mid and late 30s and humidity levels exceeding 85%.

While people all over have been discussing the heat, another factor high up and never too far away from peoples minds is the grand spectacle of a weather system called the Monsoon. The Monsoons are meant to bring in the much needed rains to cool of the parched Kerala landscape before the heat drives people up the wall.

When my father’s generation talks about the monsoon, they refer to it as a dependable force that hits the Kerala coast with precision. It had traditionally been setting in on the day that the schools re-open after the summer vacations - June 1st of every year. They talk about the excitement of going to school with a new umbrella, the massive downpour, thunder and lightning, localised flooding, swarming of fishes from the rivers to paddy fields and the sigh of relief that the farming community in Kerala heave in anticipation of their thirsty crops being well irrigated by this annual water supply.

These days however, nothing is predictable any more. The precise date of June first has become more of a myth. In the last five years the monsoon has never set in on that date.

Year	Actual Onset Date	Forecast Onset Date
2005	7th June	10th June
2006	26th May	30th May
2007	28th May	24th May
2008	31st May	29th May
2009	23rd May	26th May

Moreover, the rains themselves have been irregular and unpredictable. It takes a lot of factors to gel in for the monsoons to set in. The chief predictors used are (don't ask me what half of these mean!) i) Minimum Temperature over North-west India, ii)  Pre-monsoon rainfall peak over south Peninsula, iii) Outgoing Long wave Radiation (OLR) over south China Sea, (iv) Lower tropospheric zonal wind over southeast Indian ocean, (v) upper tropospheric zonal wind over the east equatorial Indian Ocean, and (vi) Outgoing Long wave (OLR) over south-west Pacific region.

There are 14 weather stations used in Monsoon onset monitoring ( viz. Minicoy, Amini, Thiruvananthapuram, Punalur, Kollam, Allapuzha, Kottayam, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Thalassery, Kannur, Kasargode and   Mangalore). If after 10th   May, 60% of the available 14 stations enlisted, report rainfall of 2.5 mm or more for two consecutive days, the onset over Kerala is declared on the 2nd  day.

This year was meant to be different and I had been looking forward to receiving the monsoon on June 1st. Having satisfied all of the above conditions, the monsoon had been officially declared to have hit the Kerala coast on May 31st and I was eagerly waiting for it to work its way up to Thodupuzha, but wait as I might, the rains did not arrive.

It was later that I got to know that the monsoon had been hijacked as it worked its way upwards. A cyclone system, called cyclone Phet formed near the Gujarat – Pakistan coast (its currently developing as a severe- category 2 cyclone), sucking the monsoonal moisture away from Kerala towards the north. Our monsoon was literally robbed of its water and halted in its tracks!

And so here I sit waiting for the rains. I`m sure many of you are just as eager to see the monsoon. As we wait for the evasive visitor to arrive, here are some links that the monsoonally inclined would find interesting:

The Indian Meteorological Department website with loads of interesting weather related information, including frequent monsoon updates.

Indian Weatherman – an interesting blog with frequent updates on everything related to weather in India. Here is his twitter feed if you prefer that.

Chasing the Monsoon – the perfect book to read while you await the monsoon. Written by Alexander Frater as he followed the monsoon in an epic adventure up the Kerala coast and into the north of India, climaxing in Cherrapunji.

Follow the monsoon online with NDTV’s Monsoon express (no affiliation) with lots of monsoon related, articles, picture and videos.