Caring for an orphaned elephant

In India they do not always treat elephants how it should be done; Always there are exceptions.

2023 Oscar Nominee

Among the Oscar nominees in the Best Documentary Short category this year is the 2022 Indian-American short documentary film The Elephant Whisperers. The documentary tells the story of an indigenous couple named Bomman and Belli who are entrusted with an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu. The couple care for orphaned elephants with the same amount of love they would give their own child, which makes that there comes to exist an inner bond between the animal and the human carer. Set in the Mudumalai National Park in South India, the documentary also highlights the natural beauty of the location. It explores the life of the tribal people in harmony with nature. The directorial debut of documentary filmmaker Kartiki Gonsalves, who spent five years following this family to make this documentary, presents us with a lovestory, which shall not many hearts untouched. Produced by Sikhya Entertainment, the film had its world premiere on 9 November 2022 at DOC NYC Film Festival, a film festival for documentaries in the United States. Today you can watch it with subtitles or dubbed on Netflix. Director Kartiki Gonsalves said her goal for audiences i “to stop seeing animals as the other and start seeing them as one of us.”

Paul Noël his writings and thoughts

Paul Noël or Paul Paddington when he was at school and as a teenager he promised his English teacher that he would one day write a book.

After studying he landed up in the IT, not exactly a place where books are written. Many years later he spent a lot of time travelling around South America with his partner and during the eight and half months there they sat on long-distance coaches quite a number of times. As part of this round the world trip once they left South America they spent Christmas and New Year in New Zealand and the time and the experience there are what kicked off the ideas for writing stories for children.

So, after completing a one year away travelling experience it was back to work for him. In his spare time he tried to get all the publishers in the Writers and Artists Yearbook interested in his work but rejection was one hundred percent. He basically gave up or was too busy and did not notice the huge growth of the wonderful Kindle Direct Platform allowing everyone to easily publish their ideas.

Then in February of 2018 he was made redundant after having worked at the same company for him to polish his stories and get them published on Amazon.

Next to writing stories he also publishes a blog. In his opinion the planet is in a very bad state and we have only got ourselves, the human primate, to blame. He writes

To get out of this mess we would need a species level mindset change and that would take some inspired leaders. Unfortunately, taking a look around, there are not many of those. {The wooden elephants have moved, London}

Perhaps the only way that we will see elephants in the future unless we stop senselessly killing them and encroaching on their land. Something that would involve curbing and stabilising human population growth. Taking things a step further we must hope that living trees weren’t chopped down to make the elephants.{Wooden Elephants, The Mall, London}

He also looks at places around his neighbourhood. He also notices how trees got damaged. He finds trees amazing, and

a crucial part of the life support systems that sustain all other life including the human primate. It’s a shame that we are such dumb monkeys and cut down and burn so many of them. {Battered tree, Hyde Park, London}

And he remarks:

Hyde Park of course is very managed and in normal woodland and forests the ground would not be manicured as it is here. The fallen trees would be a source of food for so many other forms of life.

Trees are amazing, a crucial part of the life support systems that sustain all other life including the human primate. It’s a shame that we are such dumb monkeys and cut down and burn so many of them. {Fallen giants lying at the feet of living giants, Hyde Park, London}

> Books By Paul Noël