In her final moments, Vatsala, arguably Asia's oldest female elephant, lay down with a bleeding toenail in the Hinauta range of Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh. The staff fondly called her 'Dadi'. They tried to lift her. For long, she had defied age, but not again, and she died on Tuesday. Her death sparked an enormous outpouring of grief among wildlife enthusiasts, elephant lovers and forest officials. The Kerala-born elephant had become sort of a lore in Panna. In her death, the legacy lived on.

It's not often that a place known for tigers would be celebrated for an elephant which arrived from the Southernmost part of the country. This was not the only irony about Vatsala, though. She stayed off male elephants. Her aloofness had provoked a tusker into inflicting her with near-fatal wounds twice. She endured both attacks and recovered.

Vatsala never gave birth, but she tended to young elephants, nurtured and guarded them. Having rescued from the deep forests of Nilambur, Vatsala was trained by Malayali mahouts before she was transported to Madhya Pradesh. In her new home, she also found a new friend who spoke a different language; Maniram Gond, who was her mahout.

In an article published in People's Archives of Rural India, Maniram marvels at her strong sense of smell and how she sensed threats and guarded herds by keeping calves in the middle. Having been brought from Kerala, rice used to be her favourite food until she was forced to change her diet following a violent attack by a male elephant. She never had babies, but she raised calves of other elephants like her own, Maniram says in the article.

Age was always a mystery in her case. With no documents, it was always difficult to ascertain her exact age. Abdul Salam, former Range Officer, Karulai, recollects the history of Vatsala.

"In 1971, Vatsala was rescued from a pit in the Pattakarimbu forest of Karulai by then range officer TN Adiyodi. He named her and took her to the elephant training centre. That same year, she was transferred to Madhya Pradesh as per a decision of the state government," he said.

For around 25 years, Vatsala hauled timber in the Bori forest and was only later moved to Panna. She was indispensable for the foresters in tiger tracking activities. "Vatsala was lovingly called as the grandma elephant as she fed and cared for several calves," said L Krishnamoorthy, APCCF (Wildlife) and official spokesperson for Panna Tiger Reserve. "She was friendly to animals and humans alike," he said.

Vatsala played a pivotal role in monitoring the tiger population in the Reserve and provided cover to Forest officers as they approached wildlife that needed to be tranquillised during man-animal conflict in nearby villages. She also patrolled the sanctuary during rainy seasons, when the jungle roads were inaccessible.

Vatsala’s mahout, Maniram Gond, remembered her as calm and resilient. "She had been here ever since I started working at the Reserve. Despite coming from Nilambur, she adapted well to the new environment. She was also already trained by authorities in Kerala, so we did not have much training to do," Gond told Onmanorama.

"She was blind towards the end and had been unwell for 10 to 15 days before her death. Otherwise, she had only a few health problems throughout her time here," he said.

Vatsala was not the first elephant to be translocated from Kerala. "During my time as a range officer, one elephant was transported to Romania and another to Hyderabad," reminisced Salam. "A 21-day-old calf named Nirmala, whom we rescued from a river and treated under serious circumstances by Dr N C Kuruvilla, was later handed over to the Devaswom Board by the state government," he said.

Moving tributes flooded social media pages after she died. "With heavy hearts, we bid farewell to Vatsala, >100-old matriarch of Panna Tiger Reserve. Her gentle presence inspired awe in all who met her. Thank you, Vatsala, for countless rescue operations & nurturing many Elephant calves," Anupam Sharma, DFO, Panna Tiger Reserve (South Division) posted on X.