Quick-thinking Bengal woman fends off angry tusker, saves her children

Size doesn’t matter. The phrase got an entirely new meaning for a tea garden worker in West Bengal’s Alipurduar district. She fended off an enraged wild elephant and saved her three children with sheer courage and presence of mind.

It was on Monday night when Nasima Ansari, an employee of a closed tea garden in the Kalchini area of the district, was sleeping with her three children in their small tin walled shanty. Her husband was in the adjoining room.

Suddenly at around midnight, Nasima heard a creaking sound. Soon one of the tin walls of her house got tore open and she saw a large tusker pushing against the fragile tin wall.

Before she could act the elephant almost grabbed two of her children with its trunk. At this point, her children were frozen in fear. Sensing the impending danger Nasima grabbed its trunk and pressed its hard against the jagged broken tin wall.

“Perhaps the sharp edges of the wall hurt the elephant’s trunk. It was momentarily stunned by the sudden pain and loosened its grip on my children a bit,” said Nasima. Seizing the opportunity she pulled her three children to safety.

However, the danger was far from over for Nasima and her children. The blow from the jagged tin roof enraged the jumbo even more and it ripped open the tin wall. Soon the elephant put its massive head inside the room.

Nasima feared for the worst. But instead of panicking, she suddenly thought that perhaps the elephant was looking for food. She picked up a bag of wheat and risking her life she went a bit close to the angry elephant and put the bag in front of it.

This distracted the animal. It grabbed the bag and slowly walked away.

“It was a do or die situation. I had to act to save my children. Hopefully, the elephant will not return,” said Nasima.