Chengalur Ranganathan moving the main idol during the Arattupuzha Pooram of Thrissur from 1906 to 1914
Chengalur Ranganathan carried the main idol during Arattupuzha Pooram of Thrissur from 1906 to 1914
As you enter the main hall of the State Museum KeralaIn Thrissur district, you see a mounted skeleton of an elephant with the sign: ‘Anyud Asthi’ (elephant skeleton). To a regular visitor, this may seem like just another exhibition, but this was no ordinary Tusker. An information box placed under the skeleton bears the name of the elephant – Chengallur Ranganathan. Although there is hardly any credible information on the animal, a new Malayalam documentary suggests that Ranganathan may be the tallest domesticated elephant in Asia.
Ranganathan Chief Thidambu (Statue) during the Arattupuzha Pooram of Thrissur from 1906 to 1914, until it was attacked by Akvoor Govindan, another elephant. during filming Ranganathan: Exploring Heights – An Art Documentary, its producers Sooraj Nambiat and Soni Narayanan visit the house where the tusker died in 1917. “A descendant of the family showed us the chain that was used to tie Ranganathan. They still preserve it as a tribute to the great elephant,” says director Narayanan.
Poster of ‘Ranganathan: Search for the Height – An Art Documentary’.
Tiruchi to Thrissur
According to some accounts, Ranganathan was brought from the famous Ranganatha Swamy temple. Tiruchi, The temple apparently bought the elephant when it was a calf. He soon grew taller than an average elephant in those days and was unable to enter the inner gate of the temple during the procession. The authorities decided to let him go and thus Parameswaran Namboothiri Ranganathan of Chengallur Mana in Thrissur in 1905 became the owner.
There is no authentic record showing how Ranganathan traveled to Kerala. However, elephant lovers in the town believe that the pachyderms covered a distance of over 350 km on foot. The journey may have taken months and it has taken a toll on Ranganathan’s health. Namboothiri was fond of elephants and reportedly nursed the animal back to health.
Sooraj Nambiat (left) and Soni Narayanan, producers of Ranganathan: Search for the Height – An Art Documentary, release this month. , photo credit: special arrangement
Having grown up listening to the many accounts of the elephant’s life, in 2017, Narayanan, an artist, Nambiyat and an assistant director, decided to explore its true story in the form of a documentary.
Before coming to the museum to measure the height of the skeleton, the two began with research, collecting data from a variety of sources, and created many of Tusker’s drawings, sculptures, and sketches. 2018 Kerala floods And the subsequent pandemic put a spoke in his wheel and it wasn’t until last year that he finally managed to reach Ranganathan’s height with the help of museum experts.
Suraj Nambiat measures the skeleton with the help of experts at Thrissur Museum. , photo credit: special arrangement
The skeleton stood at a height of 345 cm (11’3″), which is almost a foot higher than the tallest living captive elephant in India today – Thechikottukavu Ramachandran (316 cm, 10’4″) Thechikottukavu Devasom Temple, also in Thrissur Is. Nambiat, the producer of the film, says, “We spent about four hours measuring the skeleton. It was a great feeling.”
The documentary will release later this month.
The author is a freelance journalist based in Chennai.