A teenage tribal girl talks to an elephant, treats it as her ‘brother’ and ventures into the forest riding on its back with an empty stomach in the jungles of Jharkhand and Odisha. The tale might sound like a scene from The Jungle Book for many rather than real. However, the protagonist of the real-life tale — 16-year-old Nirmala Toppo, popularly known as ‘Tarzan Girl’ and the ‘Elephant Girl’ from Simdega district of Jharkhand does all that people could only find in movies and tales.
The braveheart, who has been driving away the herd of wild elephants from entering the villages and saving people, has sadly quit her role due to poverty. The apathetic attitude shown towards her and her family has compelled her to end her journey with the pachyderms and work as a peon at a block office at Birmitrapur in Sundargarh district of Odisha.
“Nirmala and her father have both played a very crucial role in keeping the loss of man-animal conflict under control to a greater extent. This issue was not brought to our notice earlier otherwise, we could have arranged for her education and more. But we will soon bring her back to Simdega and she will be admitted in the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) here for her further education and training as an electrician. I have been told that she wanted to be an electrician so
will she be soon and receive Government support for her family, too,” said Vijay
Kumar, Deputy Commissioner, Simdega.
The girl has been talked about few many times by several Indian National as well as regional newspapers and online media, including BBC Hindi about her technique of talking to the elephants that often invade the human settlements while on their way to returning to the forest.
The forest officials from Simdega have often been helped by the girl and her father Marianus Toppo, who lost his life when he was killed by few wild elephants on one such man-animal encounter in 2013. Marianus was helping the forest officials in driving away the herd from the villages.
“The tribal little girl from Jharkhand has been living and literally talking to wild animals, especially with wild animals. She used to claim that they understand her and would often circle the elephants along with a group of young boys from her village and start the operation to shoo them away by first praying to them. The elephants would really listen to her and she would follow the herd to the middle of the forest bare foot and often hungry,” said T Bhagat, District Forest Officer (DFO), Simdega.
The DFO said that it is unfortunate that the girl had to quit living her absolutely natural lifestyle and work in order to run her family. “She can save so many people from the too frequent danger of man-animal conflict here and other places. She should be supported by the administration and encouraged to teach other villager young boys and girls her tricks in the future,” he added.
According to a report from the Ministry of Environments and Forests and Climate Change, about 3,000 elephants live in the forests of three States of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chattisgarh. These areas witness many conflicts between human and animals due to the ever-increasing mining activities in this region. The report also estimates that more than 80 people and over 200 elephants were killed in the past 10 years in both the states of Jharkhand and Odisha. Though, the unofficial number suggests a larger figure than this.