The grand and luxurious life of Delhi’s ‘last’ elephant

Every time 46-year-old Laxmi sees the grey Rolls Royce entering the sprawling farmhouse at Dera Mandi she gets excited, swishing her tail slowly from side to side. With her eyes half closed, the elephant approaches the car knowing that her master has arrived with gifts in the form of food.

“Elephants are known to have excellent memory. Laxmi remembers me and my car. I usually have to travel a lot. But whenever I get time, I visit the farmhouse. She gets excited with the very sight of my car,” said Vivek Chand Burman, 85, chairman emeritus, Dabur India Ltd.

At present, there are seven domesticated elephants in Delhi, but the city may soon be left with just one – Laxmi.

The forest department has served notices to the owners of six elephants kept at Sangam Vihar in Wazirabad area to shift their animals out of Delhi. The allegations are the animals are kept in “unhygienic conditions” and that wild animals can’t be kept in crowded urban areas.

The elephant owners were given a deadline of December 25, 2017, by which they were to inform the government where they would like to shift the tuskers. Plans were being made to move the healthy elephants to Rajaji Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand, while the rest were to be taken to Kalesar in Haryana. The owners moved the high court again as they said they had identified a spot near Wazirabad, away from human settlement and near the Yamuna.

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