"Chalo Chaloooo..."

"Chalo, chalo, chalooo....." the intensity of the scream kept increasing. She kept on coming closer. Fast and furious! She came beyond our comfort zone. Thankfully she didn't whack us, just screamed twice, stamped her foot in anger, turned around and walked away, still angry. And then within minutes, the other one came running towards us. She didn't look the aggressive sorts. Looked very calm and gentle. But she turned out to be even more aggressive than the earlier one. She literally chased us away.

Before you wonder who these two aggressive females are, it is two female wild elephants that I am referring to. These two females, charged at our gypsy within minutes of each other at the Jim Corbett National Park.

Elephant mock charges are pretty common at Corbett. Tuskers can charge when they think you are in their way, but female elephants usually charge when there are baby elephants in their herd. Earlier, we had two tuskers charging at our gypsies. But these charges were not of the intensity that these two by the female elephants were. When these two female elephants charged, our heart skipped quite a few beats. Because when the first one charged, our gypsy did not move. Our driver did not see her charging (After all the vehicle was standing facing the other direction and he was busy admiring his cell phone!). Imagine our state when we saw an animal so huge closing-in on us in fury!! We were completely stunned. My friend was screaming "Chalo, chalo..." to the driver but that didn't seem to help. He also panicked a little and couldn't start the gypsy. Our gypsy never moved an inch. And within seconds, the 10,000 tonne (maybe not:)) elephant was right in front of us. She was so close, that we could have petted her trunk. But forget petting, all we could think about was "Ok that's it! She is going to hit." But probably it was our stunned expressions that made her change her mind about whacking us! She just stomped in anger, trumpeted, turned and went back.

We were just overcoming the shock of this close call, when we saw another female crossing the road with her little one. She crossed the road and just when we thought she had reached the other end, she turned and charged. She came running towards our jeep fast. Thankfully our driver was aware (and ready) this time and moved our gypsy immediately. But suddenly we could feel the elephant closing-in on us and again even this one came really close to her. She had increased her pace considerably. Our driver pressed the accelerator further. She ran behind our gypsy for quite a few meters and then stopped and turned around. But she turned around again to ensure that we were not coming back.
Within the span of these two charges, the rest of the elephant herd had ensured that all the little ones crossed the road.