Eight-and-a-half feet tall and weighing 5.5 tonnes, Khaleem, the majestic tusker at Anamalai Tiger Reserve is Tamil Nadu’s star kumki elephant. With a broad head and a frame that is tall and imposing, Khaleem could almost pass for a poster elephant on tourism brochures – his ideal features conforming to what ancient Tamil texts describe as the requisites for a majestic elephant.
Khaleem was captured in 1972 from Sathyamangalam forests at the age of seven and trained as a kumki elephant. Wherever wild elephants stray into human habitation, damage crops and threaten humans, Khaleem is summoned to capture the wild pachyderm and take it to one of the three training camps in the state, which today are home to more than 50 elephants.
A senior wildlife officer said soon after Khaleem was captured at Sathyamangalam, they planned to start an elephant camp there. Khaleem would have been the first to undergo training in the camp. However, with the introduction of the Wildlife Protection Act that year, the idea to have a camp at Sathyamangalam was dropped and instead Khaleem was sent to the then Indira Gandhi Wildlife sanctuary and National Park in Pollachi, Coimbatore where an elephant camp was already functioning.
At Topslip, in Coimbatore, Khaleem became a ward of Palanisamy, one of the most skilled mahouts, who trained the tusker for seven to eight years. Apart from training the animal on moving forward and backward in a controlled manner, trumpeting and other commands, the mahout also trained Khaleem to attack wild elephants. Khaleem is a foot soldier who leads from the front. He is also the one who delivers the first blow to a wild elephant and brings it under control.