Rangaiah Sreenivasa Murthy

Late Budhram Rothiya the Mahout and Rambahadur, the Elephant. Both were integral to Panna Revival. I was part of the Team that captured this wild (then) elephant from Jashpurnagar(Chattisgarh) in January 1993. Outstanding and majestic bull elephant who obeys the commands and works gently even in ‘musth’ condition. One can see musth flowing from his temple glands in the picture.

Here is one more picture of Budhram, Rambahadur and I. In this picture also his temple glands were flowing full, but Budhram managed him with a simple bamboo stick which was a wonder for everyone. I have had no problem holding his tusks and standing with him. Rambahadur used to converse with me. The photo was shot by Dr John Singh retired Scientist Wildlife Institute of India. Such was a relationship between Rambahadur and Budhram. Sorry that he had become rouge elephant and took two human lives in last two years. The bull elephant had killed Range Officer Bindeshwari Bhagat, two years ago.

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Rambahadur, the Panna Tiger Reserve elephant, killed his own mahaut on Monday 4 July 2022. The incident occured at about 10 a.m. when the mahout had taken Ram Bahadur and a cow elephant, into the Madla Range forest for foraging.