FREEDOM

THE MASSACRE

Everyone is eagerly waiting for raman's arrival. The celebrity of the temple. 

It was the hottest day of the year. People were sweating,holding papers over their heads, standing under the shade where they could find,ice cream shops crowded with children.

 Buttermilk is given to people from stalls managed by temple,people drinking it,also filling their empty water bottles.

Playing for about two and a half hours,still people enjoy listening to the pandi melam which is being played with a rhythm of seven beats.

Raman, an elephant,is fully decorated with ornaments and cloth carrying the idol of lord shiva and walks towards the temple after a long walk across the street of vishnupuram.it has also has an record of the largest elephant in asia. 

When it arrives at the entrance of the temple. 

The fireworks begins. People start recording the event on their phones. 

The sounds of melam,fireworks,the smoke,people shouting,heat from the torch,begins to dwell together making raman to wobble around shaking his head slowly which made the idol unstable. 

Raman's mahout rajan standing with a stick hits its chained leg. Raman stays calm again.

Without warning, raman threw Rajan toward the crowd with its trunk and trumpets a sound making the crowd run for their lives. 

It waves its trunk over the man holding the fire torch and threw him towards the coconut leaf stalls. 

The fire from the torch starts to spread like a wildfire to all the stalls. 

Raman moves it leg back and front,after a long struggle it breaks its chain and runs towards the crowd shaking its head and body causing the idol to fall on the ground with a trumpeting sound which shakes the ground. 

Raman caught an old lady pushing her down. 

The old lady screams for help. Walks over to her. Carries her and throws the old lady with its trunk. 

It walks towards the dead old lady bends its head to the ground over her stabs her with its tusk.

People try hitting it with the bamboo stick fallen on the ground and throwing stones over it. but nothing seems to stop it. 

Some people start recording the massacre on their phone. 

Some people start to put water on the fire. 

People running everywhere with fire wounds. smoke fills the area blocking everyone's vision.

A young man runs towards it with a torch and hits it with it. Raman trumpets in pain and runs toward the man leaving the old lady on the ground.

Raman caught him and threw him over the pots which were boiling with food as an offering for the god. 

The young man cries out in pain from the boiled food on him.raman picks him up. 

Slams him on the ground over and over like a rubber doll until his cries stop or even after. 

People running over each other with their visions are blocked by the smoke. Raman's sight turns towards its mahout Rajan. It runs to his body laying down.

 Mahout lays motionless. It slowly moves his body with its trunk. Then starts dragging the body all over the place.

The whole premise is now filled with smoke.fire engine starts to extinguish the fire from the stall.

 People now start to hit Raman with whatever they could find to divert it. Some start to throw the crackers at it. 

When Raman runs away from the crackers it finds people running out of the gate to the street. Now it runs towards the gate when people lock it. 

Raman pushes the gate hard but it holds it strong. Inside people running all over the premise with their cries which made Raman trumpet again and run toward them.

When a small girl was running toward her parents at the father's end. She cries looking behind her when Raman starts chasing her. 

Before the small girl could reach her parents, Raman caught her, threw her on the floor,and toys her around. 

Raman leaves her when he spotted the vehicle on which he was brought here. 

He then runs towards it, smashes it,rolls it around,exhausting his anger. After killing over 13 people,injuring 50,he was shot with a tranquilliser.

THE SAVIOUR

Valli was feeding the parrots with grains with three stray dogs sitting by her side and a cat laying on the table with small pigs running all over chased by puppies. Valli's dad died in an army. 

Her mother died in an accident. Her only companions are the animals in the shelter. 

These animals are abandoned by humans or abused by them. She adopts them. 

Her landline rings. She walks through all the cages with birds,fishes in tanks,dogs in their shed,she picks the phone up.

Her facial expression changes. She switches on the TV. Valli reaches the place where Raman is now tied in a farm outside the city. 

She walks, crossing the people on either side with one group protesting to kill the beast,on the other not to put a ban on the animal for festival use.

An old lady walks towards valli and says the animal was banned from being paraded at temple festivals after a panel of medical experts declared it medically unfit. 

With the political pressure, the court made it clear to put the animal in festival again but later this year.

Valli looked at Raman who looked helpless and the chains tied on its legs were heavy and thicker than before. 

Valli sits down on the ground when her vision starts to blur. She takes out a tablet from her pocket and has it. 

she breathes out calming her panic. 

Valli filed a petition against the court. religious people threatened her to stop what she was doing,some politicians too.

But she continues with her research,travels all around interviewing people,forest rangers,animal psychologists. When she was sleeping in her house.

she woke up from a burnt smell.on seeing the animal sheds were burning she ran to release the birds,animals away from the house. 

She called an ambulance. When they arrived she was crying with the dead puppies and dead parrots on her hand.

THE FIND

Valli's dress looks burned out with black ash stains all over her face,presses the record button and sits in a chair in front of her phone. She exhales and starts to say that

"Raman's family was killed by hunters with guns. After its family's death, it became a rogue killing all other animals in the forest. 

Then forest officers captured it with kumki elephants. 

After Raman's capture from the forest it was very aggresive.in order to make it obey it was confined in a wooden box,physical and mental punishments were given to break its will. 

After 30 days it starts to obey his manhout.

Still, it was triggered by fireworks and shouts of people which reminded it of its parents death. 

So people also trained him to overcome it. It was bought by elephant contractor Kumaresan. 

When it arrived kumaresan appoints a manhout Rajan to take care of it. 

He used to take it to walk on tarred roads in the scorching sun for hours to attend religious festivals,tourists karting,political campaigns, and sometimes make it to beg. 

It used to travel long distance in open vehicles.

Once Rajan in anger lashed out with a hook blinding its left eye. Rajan has an abusive background of murder attempt of his wife. 

He used to drink a lot and express his anger toward Raman. Because chains had cut into its flesh, Raman had wounds on its hips,massive tumours and blood oozing out of its ankles. 

The firecrackers and torch and human shouts in the festival reminds Raman of the hunters using torches and making sounds,firecrackers remind him of the gunshot the hunters used to kill its family. 

During his lifetime, Raman has nearly killed 13 people and injured hundreds of other people. 

He has even murdered three other elephants brutally. It is not his fault.his anger was caused by the hunters who killed his family and by its abusive manhout Rajan. 

The only thing he needed is freedom.which will give him the peace he needs.

She walks and switches off the camera and posts it on social media.

THE FREEDOM

Valli was at the function at Mudumalai sanctuary.

 When Raman was walking towards the gate, Valli walked towards it and touched it. 

She remembers the first time when she touched it, Valli was young and came with her mother to the temple feeding him bananas and giving him money and getting his blessings. 

She was happy seeing him whenever she comes along with her mom,until raman became violent and killed her mother along with other people at temple.

Now she sees him, walking towards freedom.