BELLIE, FULL OF LOVE

V. Bellie, one half of the Oscar-winning The Elephant Whisperers, is the first woman cavady in Tamil Nadu

- LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

It is a balmy day in Gudalur, a small town near Ooty in Nilgiris district. The 34km stretch from Gudalur to Mudumalai hill station in the Western Ghats is a traveller’s paradise. Walking down the serene forest path, you will have inquisitive langurs, elegant deer, speedy leopards, chirpy birds and majestic elephants for company (mostly unseen and sometimes silent). The road leads to a sparse forest as we enter Mudumalai. Off the forest main road is a muddy path that brings you to a quaint little tribal settlement, home to Bomman and Bellie—the couple from Oscar-winning The Elephant Whisperers.

Clad in a blue-and-white floral print sari, a beaming Bellie welcomes me to her home. “This is my bungalow. Come in,” she says, as I look up at the sunlight streaming in through the tiny holes in the asbestos sheet roof. Utensils, clothes and bamboo baskets are strewn on the muddy floor. A few of the wooden panels that make up the wall are broken— thanks to Raghu, the orphaned jumbo star of the documentary. “He would lie down here. He only broke the wall,” says Bellie, grinning Last August, in recognition of her services towards orphaned elephant calves, the Tamil Nadu government appointed V. Bellie as the first woman