A widower’s woes: Kaawan destined for a life of loneliness

The zoo elephant’s female companion, Saheli, died in May 2012.

ISLAMABAD:

Of all the tragic events one must endure in life, the demise of a loved one, and that too of a partner, is perhaps the most painful. The extent of this universal gloom is transparent in the eyes of Kaawan, the male elephant at Islamabad’s Marghazar Zoo, who became a ‘widower’ after the death of Saheli last May.

Over a year has passed, but the lonely giant has yet to adjust to life without his beloved.

One glance at the forlorn pachyderm shows how grief-struck he is — laying bare the daily misery he calls life. His heartache has become something of an open-secret at the zoo, according to Kaawan’s caretaker, Afzal, who says the elephant has been this way since Saheli fell sick and died.

The happy couple had been living together for more than two decades, which made it easy to understand why Kaawan did not eat for almost a week after Saheli’s death and seemed to ignore all around him.

Kaawan, who was initially seen as being too aggressive to be around visitors, has turned into a docile shadow of his former self.

“Since Saheli’s death, I have not once seen him in a cheerful mood,” said Afzal. Hearing the sad story, one feels a compulsion to somehow help Kaawan move forward with his life.

Kaawan was presented to Gen Ziaul Haq in 1985 by his Sri Lankan counterpart. Another five years on, Saheli also brought over from Sri Lanka.

The two were inseparable until since Saheli’s sickness cruelly snatched her away from Kaawan.

The zoo’s deputy director, Dr Saleem, says that Kaawan will likely live out his remaining years as a widower as the zoo administration has no plans — and more importantly, no funds — to get a female elephant.

The doctor was worried for the lonely giant, as elephants operate best in social groups and are known to be emotional creatures that mourn the loss of their kind. He said the zoo administration is planning to establish a proper elephant house for which they plan to import a pair of elephant calves.

But this plan will do little to help Kaawan, for it does not help him learn to get over the loss of the only ‘woman’ he ever loved.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2013.