train strikes elephants, pregnant women in state of panic

A Tamil daily, Madurai Mani, was running the headline today: "Aborted baby elephant's death: Should pregnant women panic?" I immediately purchased this paper to get the scoop. A few days ago three elephants were tragically mowed down and killed by a train running in the mountainous regions of NW Tamil Nadu. Apparently the elephants did not hear the train as its engine is electric, not diesel, and it was much quieter than most trains. Once the train hit the elephants, the driver tried to get out to access the situation but was unable as he was surrounded by a herd of elephants. Upon impact a fully-formed male elephant baby was immediately aborted from its mother's body. This picture ran in many of the newspapers.

Well, it turns out that this news hasn't been taken too well by people across Tamil Nadu. If you are at all familiar with the very popular Hindu god Ganesh (a.k.a. Pillaiyar and Vinayagar, in Tamil), who has an elephant's head, you know that elephants are pretty important here in India. Elephants are considered manifestations of Pillaiyar, and the fact that a baby elephant died during this accident isn't boding well for folks here -- and for pregnant women in particular. This death of the baby elephant is being taken as a very inauspicious sign for pregnant women. But the papers are telling people, don't panic, you can do some protective rituals for Pillaiyar and it will be okay.

I'll provide more details from the article in the next post. In the meantime we are currently dealing with some major drama. I wish I could write about it here, but I can't. People are okay, but it's just some insane drama that you couldn't even imagine. I will have to tell you about it in person someday. Or by email!

After some research I discovered the sad fact
that elephant/train accidents are fairly common in India.