A close shave

A life time experience I must say!!. This happened sometime in Dec 2011.

An encounter with a "seemingly" docile & a very handsome guy, on his own ,minding his business. The tusker was grazing by the road side.  We spotted him on our way back to the guest house for lunch on Ooty- Bangalore road and instantly pulled off our car a little ahead of him and got out with our gears to freeze the moment.  The sight was superlatively awesome. Passersby were slowing down, stopping and some weirdos honking at the sight of this tusker. He still was cool and did not bother at these distractions. 

 The incidents happened in a span of 30 secs to 1 min.  I crossed over the road  and positioned myself (diagonally opposite) to get a better shot. I was making changes to the settings on the camera. Just then, a private bus repeatedly honked and passed by, which made him to lose his cool. He took off and started chasing the bus that passed by, which was also where our car was parked. My friends jumped into the car. The dude in the driver's seat pulled the *handbrake* instead of shifting gears :D, but was able to quickly gather himself and move. The rest of folks in the car were trying hard to swallow their marbles back to its original place:D. They managed to escape the wrath of the mighty one by a margin.  

          By then I was already running ahead with the *rented camera gear* on the road not knowing what to do next.  The "chase" scene reminded me of the popular track 'Bhag DK..' :D, lyrically :P.  A Wagon R from the opposite direction slowed down & halted in front of me. I could see the fear in the driver's face. Understandable!. My mind was racing & looking out for options. For a moment, I thought I would get into the car, but the chances of getting trampled was very high :).  I crossed the Wagon R and turned back to look at him. Fortunately, the guy had halted and  by then my friends slowed down the car for me and I managed to jump into it. With a sigh of relief and still palpitating, we drove away.  

           Later we were told by people from guest house that it was a “mock charge” expressing his displeasure. And some went further to call him a *rogue* elephant.

The guy taking off.   

          When I look back now, it was sheer madness and definitely unethical in wildlife photography to get out of the car and photograph. Our first few days of wildlife photography almost turned into a *shit happens* moment.  Couple of months later, a fellow photographer, whom i knew (virtually) from an online community got killed in a similar incident.

 Always have an experienced guide or mentor in the field of wildlife photography to guide you for these tours until you become a subject matter expert..  give them their “due space” to these otherwise gentle beings and.. FINALLY, it takes no time for the situation to turn ugly.    I have resolved to stick by these points and realized that to take such risks is needless!