Palakkad is quiet and sleepy. A border district between Kerala and Tamil Nadu, it has a few engineering, polytechnic institutions, a popular dam or two, a number of renowned temples; in 2010, Palakkad was scheduled to become India’s first “fully electrified district”. The town does not boast of its humble offerings, for the concept of ‘wealth’ here is not determined by currency alone. And as brothers MA Haridas and MA Parameswaran will tell you, sometimes wealth is 10 feet tall, sociable and rather fond of palm leaves.The brothers own the largest number of elephants in the state, 14 in all, creating a personal asset base of Rs10-12 crore. The Angadiyil House in Mangalamkunnu, rural Palakkad, is witness to 14 pachyderms on parade — but only when they aren’t busy handling crucial matters for temples in the area. “There is a good demand for the elephants from various temple managements,” says Haridas. Two of their elephants, Karnan and Ayyappan, are over 10 feet tall and preferred by temple management committees to carry the deity during the festival seasons.Elephants are an essential element of temple festivals in Kerala. In fact, during the festival season, temple managements compete with each other to get the best elephants (ones with well-proportioned growth in terms of height, head posture, length of the tusk, etc) for the festival days, paying a hefty fee to the owner. The elephants have an important role — they carry the idols during the festivals, and temple managements are careful to publicise the event by printing and exhibiting posters with the names and photographs of elephants on temple duty.Some elephants have superstar status in the state — when they reach a particular temple, thousands of elephant lovers assemble to see them. Stories of elephants and their attachments to a few temples and their owners are told and retold, forming urban legends such as the one about Guruvayoor Kesavan. The most popular elephant of the Guruvayoor temple, Kesavan remains a household name in Kerala; he was even the subject of a biopic after his demise in the mid-1970s. Guruvayoor Padmanabhan, the tallest and most ‘good looking’ elephant in Guruvayoor temple at present, has acquired the status of a legend.The 14 elephants of Angadiyil House have also become household names in north and central Kerala. “Our elephants are taken for temple festivals for about 130 days in a year,” says Haridas. When they’re not busy with the festival season, Haridas and Parameswaran’s elephants spend some time in front of the camera. “Once the festival season is over, the demand is usually from film shooting units and event managers for inauguration of shops or other such events,” says Parameswaran. “We get enquiries for marriages also, but mostly from Coimbatore or Bangalore,” he adds. In the past, elephants were used in timber depots to load trucks with logs.Current regulations and the increasing mechanisation of the timber logging industry have led to the phasing out of elephants in this sector. While the regulations have not stopped temples from parading elephants, the strictly enforced order banning the capture of wild elephants in Kerala has led to a decrease in the number of captive elephants.Earlier, buyers used to bring elephants from Bihar, Assam or Uttar Pradesh. Dr Giridas, a vet who specialises in the treatment of elephants, points out that “in states like Assam, the mechanisation of timber depots has made owning elephants an economically unviable proposition. As a result, there are a number of stray elephants there”. The Kerala government banned inter-state trade in elephants in 2007.Following the work done by many people and agencies, the state government has identified the number of captive elephants in the state and implanted them with micro-chips. “When this procedure was completed in 2007, there were 702 captive elephants in the state. Now the number has come down to 362,” says VK Venkitachalam, secretary, Heritage Animal Task Force.Interestingly, most of the brothers’ elephants are not native to Kerala. “Many people had bought elephants from the Sonepur animal fair in Bihar, some from UP and Assam. We have bought these elephants from them,’’ says Haridas.The maintenance of 14 elephants is an expensive affair. The elephants work for about130 days in a year, and the daily expense comes to over Rs3,000, including the cost of health care. The salary for mahouts and the money for tender palm leaves (the main diet) account for lion’s share of the expenses. The two brothers maintain a group of 50 mahouts who get a monthly salary of about Rs4,000 each. In addition, they get an allowance of Rs1,750 on days when elephants are paraded for festivals.The rentals average Rs10,000-15,000. Elephants over 10 feet tall command higher rental. It is not just the height, but the head posture when they carry the idol of the deity also counts while calculating the rental of an elephant during festivals. When you possess tall and strong elephants, the chances of making a profit from them is higher as they are always in demand. But the fall in the population of captive elephants has put a heavy strain on the elephants as they are made to run from temple to temple by the owners.“As a result, the cost of an elephant has now risen to Rs1 crore or more, as per unofficial figures. The transfers, though illegal, are still taking place. But the number of such transfers has come down to 4 or 5 a year,’’ points out TN Arunkumar, president of All Kerala Elephant Owners Association. The prices stood at Rs10 lakh a decade ago. The turning point was in 2007-08, when a deal was struck for Rs27 lakh, says Dr Giridas. More than profit, it is the sheer passion for these animals that has driven Haridas and Parameshwar to own so many elephants. But since owning an elephant now costs more than what it takes to buy a super-luxury car, the owners are leaving no stone unturned in providing the right care for the big animals.