There were many traumatic events in connection with the recent landslides in Wayanad. One of such events captured the attention of the social media in the last week. It was the personal sharing of a mother named Sujatha and her granddaughter Mrudula. In a voice filled with sadness, she narrates an episode of her rainy night of destruction. From the panic of the flood, she swam with her grandchild and then happened to meet with a massive tusker on that night of agonies. Somehow, she found the courage to confront the situation. She did not follow any logical thinking whether an elephant can understand her language; but she followed her emotions and expressed her sadness and fear in cracked voice. She told the elephant that she is coming out of a tragedy and plead not to do any more harm to them. Surprisingly the elephant burst into tears. It stood still and then became their shelter of that night.
This event becomes further significant when we realize that the wild elephants were a source of panic for those people in Wayanad some five months back. It’s interesting to notice that the one who protected them now was a source of fear earlier. People wanted those elephants to be away from their premises, though earlier they tolerated the presence of such elephants. Slowly the elephants became their enemies which turned into a friend when a mother took courage to address her fear. One cannot blindly argue that the origin of whole terrors created by elephants was irrational fear of the natives. However, the fear has significantly contributed to their terrors.
A mind which fears someone or something would unconsciously keep a distance from the same. Later such distance can grow into a hatred or even to rage. Walter Bradord Cannon, an American psychologist argued that rage and fear have many similar manifestations like improved blood circulations in the muscles and the release of hormones and glucose into the blood. Thus, whole body resources are mobilized for a fight (emotion of rage) or flight (emotion of fear). More than the co-existence of fear and anger, there are studies which prove the cause-and-effect relationship between the two. J. Bowlby proved it with an example of mother-child relationship, saying that a mother whose child has foolishly run across the road, berates and punishes him with an anger born of fear (1973). A study among posterior and interior insula in brain concludes that the fear can promote anger (2018)