PANJIM: On March 12, when Kartiki Gonsalves stepped on the gala stage of the 95th Academy Awards to receive the award for Best Documentary Short Film for ‘The Elephant Whisperers’, she brought into the limelight not only brilliance of her filmmaking and the stories of Booman and Bellie but most importantly, the conservation of elephants with the stars being Asian elephants, Raghu and Ammu.
The film that took six years in the making was a struggle for this debut director but she shared this beautiful moment completely aware that her message will now be delivered to the rest of the world.
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Everything that has been done are just steps closer towards bringing this animal out of the endangered list. The goal is to slowly increase numbers, and to get the population back up. It was the protection of the Asian elephant, that’s what I felt proud about when I was on that Oscar stage,” says Kartiki, the young filmmaker, who calls Ooty her home.
Daughter of Timothy and Priscilla Tapley Gonsalves, Kartiki traces her roots to Mangalore. It was her childhood experiences that played an important role in directing the documentary on endangered Asian elephants. It was also the time when Veerappan was living in the space around Mudumalai and Sathyamangalam Forest and was notorious for poaching nearly 1000 elephants.
“I remember when the hunt for Veerappan in my childhood. I was two years old when I was taken to Theppakadu Elephant Camp in Mudumalai National Park for the first time,” Kartiki says.
“When I was in Class 7, a mother leopard gave birth to two or three cubs just below my house. The forest department was so great, that they came around to all the houses and they asked us to keep the dogs inside after 6 pm and told us also not to come out after dark. Eventually, the mother took her cubs to the forest. It’s such a beautiful way of coexistence,” she says.
How did the film change the way elephants are looked at now? “The main idea was to get people to understand elephants on a deeper level, that these beautiful creatures are endangered at this stage and that we have only about 35,000 to 40,000 Asian elephants left. People’s perceptions of elephants changed drastically. There’s been a lot of interest in people of different ages falling in love with elephants.”
At the state level, lots of people are now flocking to Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, the footfall has increased drastically of people wanting to meet Booman and Bellie, the couple that take care of Raghu and Ammu.
“When I first met Booman, he had not been out of Mudumalai and Chennai, but now he’s been to Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Mysore. They also had the beautiful chance to be able to meet our prime minister and our president. It’s a whole new world for them at this stage, because they’re able to experience so many new things. It’s a big learning curve and a new part of their lives. They have so much respect,” explains Kartiki.
She adds, “Mahouts in general across India, never got the recognition that they deserve. These are people who are out there looking after elephants and doing such a good job. But somehow, the whole captive elephant scenario has just taken away the beautiful work that people like Booman and Bellie do. That’s another reason why I just wanted to make sure that they got the limelight everywhere.”
Another positive impact after the Oscars were the different endeavors by the State government. The Tamil Nadu Forest Department awarded money to every single mahout in Tamil Nadu and also the temporary workers, the cavadies. They also opened another elephant sanctuary.
“The impact on conservation for the Asian elephant family of Tamil Nadu has definitely increased a whole lot. I initially set out to show the plight of the Asian elephants so that we don’t lose them, but also the landscape that they live in. Hands down, I would say Tami Nadu has the best forest department in our country. I’ve had a chance to work very closely with the forest department and I was very proud,” Kartiki is proud to inform,
Besides India, Kartiki has also been to Kenya and Zambia in the last few months where she visited African elephants at the Kafue National Park and South Luangwa National Park.
“I’m doing my research for the next documentary, which is on orcas and the indigenous people of Canada, called the First Nations. I’ll be documenting the beautiful relationship between the First Nations and orcas in the Pacific Northwest of Canada,” informs Kartiki, who was in Goa last September for ‘Artisans Meet Goa’.
