The Elephant Doctor of India by Janie Chodosh

Author:Janie Chodosh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2021-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

LOKHIMAI

2002

The years after Narayan’s death were difficult. Dr. Sarma often felt sad and spent long periods thinking about his brother-in-law. He worked hard, burying his sorrow in his work, caring for his animal patients, tracking elephants, and saving more lives.

He’d found his calling and was living his dream, as his grandmother had predicted. But Dr. Sarma no longer felt like just an elephant doctor. He felt like a representative of the species.

His family mattered to him. His wife and children missed him when he was gone, and he missed them, too—yet most weekends were devoted to injured elephants. He couldn’t stand to see one suffering. So when a man named Amir Hussein called one Saturday to tell Dr. Sarma that his female elephant, Lokhimai, had a painful swelling on her back, Dr. Sarma listened, even though he’d sworn to take the day off.

“I hired her out for logging work in a private forest reserve in Arunachal Pradesh,” Amir explained, referring to privately owned land where logging was still permitted. “She came back a week ago. The mahout used her to drag a few logs in another forest in a neighboring village after she returned. Yesterday we noticed the swelling.”

“And what have you done to treat it?”

“Nothing,” Amir admitted. “I don’t know what to do. Can you help her?” He told Dr. Sarma that he lived in a small village called Dipila and asked if he could come.

Dr. Sarma suspected the elephant’s swelling might be from an infection caused by an ill-fitting harness she wore when hauling logs. Treating an infection was easier than tracking a rogue, but he was in Guwahati, a two-hour drive from Dipila. It meant another day on the road, another day away from family.

Dr. Sarma weighed his plans to stay home against the sick and suffering animal’s plight and decided to go. He’d hurry back as quickly as possible to be with his family.

“I’ll be there in a few hours,” he said.

Dr. Sarma assumed that caring for Lokhimai would be routine; he’d treat her as he had so many others and then move on. But his relationship with Lokhimai turned out to be anything but routine.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.