PM Modi meets The Elephant Whisperers' couple Bomman, Bellie; invites couple to Delhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday met Bomman and Bellie, the inspiration behind Oscar-winning documentary, The Elephant Whisperers.

PM Modi, who reached Mysuru in Karnataka on Saturday evening from Chennai following official engagements there, visited the Theppakkadu elephant camp at Mudumalai in the hilly Nilgiris district.

Upon his arrival, the PM was accorded a welcome by the pachyderms and he fed sugarcane to some of the elephants in the Theppakkadu camp at the tiger reserve here.

He later interacted with Bellie and Bomman and expressed delight over meeting the elephant caretaker couple. The couple received a photo and a shawl from the Prime Minister and were invited to visit Delhi.

"The Elephant Whisperers." "What a delight to meet the wonderful Bomman and Belli, along with Bommi and Raghu (elephant calves)," he said in a tweet.

PM Modi uploaded pictures of him being with the couple and the young elephants, with one of them being in a playful mood with the PM.

In a video of his visit, Prime Minister Modi was seen feeding sugarcane to an elephant.

What is the elephant whispers all about?

For the unversed, 'The Elephant Whisperers', a 39-minute documentary produced by Guneet Monga and Achin Jain of Sikhya Entertainment depicts an unbreakable bond between two abandoned elephants and their caretakers.

The film features Bomman and Bellie, a couple in Mudumalai National Park in Tamil Nadu, who dedicated their lives to looking after the orphaned baby elephants, Raghu and Ammu, thus, forging a family like no other.

The film explores the life of an elderly couple couple, who take great pains to ensure that the fragile, injured infant survives and grows to be a healthy juvenile. In the process, a strong bond develops between the couple and the elephant.

Set in the Mudumalai National Park in the beautiful state of Tamil Nadu, the movie highlights the loving bond between humans and pachyderms and is the first Indian movie to bag an Academy Award in this category. It plays around the life of the tribal people in harmony with nature.

The film is not just a heart-touching story of a bond between animals and humans and co-existence but also showcases Indian culture and tradition of environment conservation.

The producer Kartiki Gonsalves spent five years following a human-elephant blended family belonging to Kattunayakan tribe to make this documentary.