HATHI GAON, AMBER, RAJASTHAN

An article by Mohan S.Rao, INDE

Published in the Landscape Journal No: 20, Summer 2008.

Summary:

Site area : 3,51,250 sqm

Architect: Rahul Mehrotra, RMA Associates, Mumbai
Landscape Architect Mohan S. Rao ; Integrated Design, Bangalore
Introduction:
The elephants are employed in the tourism sector in Amber, 11 kilometers from
Jaipur City, which ferry tourists from the foothills to Amber Fort along a steep
incline in a dry, hot and drought-ridden climatic zone.
Animal activists have raised concerns over their living conditions for a number of
years, taking cognizance of which, the state allotted 85 acres to develop an
elephant-centric settlement, christened Hathi Gaon.
Master Plan:
The primary concern of the master plan was to recreate an ecosystem, which
addresses the physical and psychological comfort of the elephants.
This project has landscape as the centre and architecture has evolved around it
focusing on the landscape and using the precious resource of water as the
actual instrument around which the decisions were facilitated.
The idea to create a sustainable living habitat for the elephants as opposed to a
conventional zoo. The primary determinant towards the planning of the site
was articulated through the understanding if its topography. The analysis was
not only listed in identifying buildable and no buildable zones for development
but also ascertain landscape-planning techniques towards a water sensitive
planning approach.
The estimated annual water requirement of this habitation including drinking,
irrigation and bathing (for the elephants) is around 150 million liters. Scanty
rainfall averaging 600mm per year renders water closure on site an unrealistic
proposition.
To reduce external dependency, design initiatives encourage the retention of
the surface water and its recharge. A network of vegetated swales, punctuated
by retention basins and larger ponds, feeds a series of large, interlinked
reservoirs at the central low-lying region of the site.
Islands within these water bodies function as nesting grounds for avian life.
Wastewater from the mahouts housing is filtered through a decentralized
wastewater treatment system (DEWATS) and reused for irrigation.

The approach to such a landscape articulation focuses on the conversion of a

terrain that contradicts the traditional vocabulary of its location but mediates
and expresses itself to the larger ecosystem setting. Such a landscape project in
particular probably stages a more impure an unstable organization of landscape
as it attempts to intermediate between disparate and at most times
uncomprehendable forces working within the territory.
The space produced is more the nestling of user demands against ecology and
environment and moving further towards cultural and functional tendencies and
adjacencies. Though the need and the functioning of the landscapes has an
embedded quality and quantity, its appropriation remains more open ended
due to the constant oscillations between the user and the consumer of the
space.

Elephants tortured, starved in the name of religion

Article by India Today TV under their Campaign #SavetheJumbo

India Today TV has accessed exclusive footage from two documentary

filmmakers who have captured the persecution of elephants on camera.
Tortured, blinded, starved, chained, the soles of their feet burnt with torches
and spikes dug deep into their limbs...these are just some of the ways in which
elephants at temples in Kerala and the Amer Fort are brutalised in the name of
culture and tourism.
In Amer in Rajasthan, filmmaker Brigette Uttar Kornetzky finds mahauts literally
burning the sole of the elephants' feet. Activists say elephants suffer from severe
abrasions of the foot-sole and joint and muscle damage because they're forced
to walk on concrete, often over loaded with tourists.
The mahauts burn their soles to make their feet numb and force them to work
even when they are sick. Most elephants used for tourism purposes also go
blind, thanks to spicey pastes used to paint their eyes. Often they're deliberately
blinded with smoke...so they become weak and dependent on the Mahaut.