Jamnagar is home to the world’s largest oil refinery – yet, surprisingly, it looks like a Vincent Van Gogh landscape, with a patchwork quilt-like array of bright green fields. This terrain, blowsy with warm winds from the Arabian Sea, a touch of dryness from the nearby Kutch desert, holds more surprises. It houses Anant Ambani’s Vantara Animal Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre, spread over 3,000 acres of planted forests. Trumpeting elephants, enigmatic lions, slithering pythons, well-rounded hippos and nimble mountain goats live here, nestled amidst the world’s largest mango orchard, the trees touched with a lick of cerulean paint, making them seem like a setting from ‘Alice in Wonderland’. ‘That’s organic pesticide,’ smiles soft-spoken Anant, explaining Vantara to ‘Gujarati-medium’, ‘Hindi-medium’ and ‘English-medium’ visitors. ‘It’s harmless to animals and many neelgai play here.’
At Vantara, Jamnagar. Photos: SL Shanth Kumar, TOI
Stepping into Vantara, you smell teak. Brown bulrushes sway in the breeze and cheerful marigolds pop out of the earth. As your urban jadedness falls away, you feel you’ve stepped into an enchanted land, where big cats purr contentedly and crocodiles bask in peace. But Vantara is poignantly real for it is home to animals who’ve suffered at the hands of humans. ‘I’ve rescued animals from all over the world,’ says Anant. ‘They were forced to perform in circuses. They were pushed into tiny enclosures and tortured to do tricks. They were put to labour in logging, carrying tourists on their backs, begging on the road,’ he winces. ‘Many had severe ailments. A lion in a circus had been burnt with cigarettes. An elephant had gone blind, beaten over its eyes. A tiger was so starved into submission, it was skin and bones when it came to us. Also, 75% of our over-200 rescued elephants suffer from chronic arthritis,’ he explains as jumbos now stroll the soft green grounds. ‘An elephant’s natural habitat isn’t concrete. But if you force it to walk miles on that, its joints can’t cope. Can you imagine that animal’s pain, unable to bear its own weight?’
WINGS OF HOPE: Vantara is home to diverse bird species, part of its effort to rebuild ecosystem
Thus, Vantara houses the world’s largest and most modern elephant hospital, with a fleet of ambulances and special cranes to transport injured wildlife. While its sanctuary offers diverse outdoor treatments – including elephants playing with fragrant multani mitti which heals their sores to hydrotherapy ponds and jumbo jacuzzis – the facility also conducts diagnostics and operations, laser procedures, acupuncture and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
The last was a life-saver for Leelavati. ‘The elephant performed in a circus,’ a doctor explains. ‘A fire broke out and a burning tent landed on chained Leelavati who couldn’t run away. She came here, terribly scalded and traumatised. But with oxygen therapy, her skin began to grow back – she’s amazed us with her resilience!’ The treatments aren’t only for animals you’d like to hug.
IN LEAFY GLADES: Vantara is inhabited by many deer species which enjoys its enormous mango orchard
Among others, Vantara helped a Burmese python, removing its eye abscesses surgically, so it could regain vision. There is cutting-edge science at work here, with international veterinarians and zoologists, operating in facilities that resemble an Ivy League campus. And there’s more.
IN SICKNESS & HEALTH: Vantara lavishes care on its rescued animals. Its kitchens make hundreds of kgs of jambo laddus daily
Meanwhile, using mobile X-rays, CT scans, ultrasounds and endoscopy, its vets carry out complex medical treatments
‘My love for animals stems from spiritualism,’ says Anant, walking around the big cat facility where photo-graphy is forbidden, so the animals are not startled. A temple stands like a crown upon the complex’s head. ‘We worship Ma Amba,’ Anant explains, ‘Her vehicle is a lion and we pray to her to protect all the animals here,’ his voice trembles slightly, giving away how deeply he seeks that. While we walk beside huge Bengal tigers, dogging our footsteps behind a glass wall, Anant says, ‘Hinduism considers humans and animals as equal. As a child, my mother rescued many stray dogs. She is my greatest inspiration. My nana told me, ‘If you help beings who can’t express their pain in words, you earn the highest punya.’ As a boy, I rescued hens and goats from slaughterhouses. Once,’ he chuckles, ‘We had 200 goats living in our Cuffe Parade house.’
MED IN INDIA: From Ayurvedic massages to Kathiawadi healing sheds, Vantara is proud Indian
But Anant wanted to do more. ‘Extinction is a reality now,’ he emphasises. ‘We are losing species forever at an alarming rate worldwide. I wanted to help save endangered animals. My father was my biggest support – he said, ‘Do something that gives back to society.’ Protecting animals is that. Animals have God within them – we can’t see divinity but his creatures are all around us.’
SHOWER POWER: Water’s healing ability is used in hydrtherapy ponds and jet shower for elephants
Yet, the path to good intentions was paved with challenges. ‘Few vets in India knew wildlife medicine – they could solve a cow or dog’s problems but no one knew how to heal a tiger. So, at Vantara, we started capacity building – I searched for global experts, academics, vets, biologists, etc., to work here and train Indians as well. India is one of the few nations to ban animals in circuses,’ Anant explains. ‘It’s my dream that India should become the world’s leader in animal welfare.’
This involves legalese. ‘There are many norms around handling wildlife. Whether it’s a rescue case in India or abroad, we follow all the rules and 12 lawyers handle Vantara’s tasks. Sometimes, our work is portrayed in a different manner,’ he says, with a touch of frustration. ‘It’s made out as if we are doing this for entertainment or running a zoo. I don’t even believe in the concept of a zoo – it’s an outdated idea where animals were kept for human entertainment. For me, an animal’s right to dignity is foremost. Vantara is a rescue, rehabilitation and research centre. It’s not a display zone or a pashu sangrahalaya – it is a sevalaya, our place of service to God’s creatures.’
Devotion achieves fruition through knowledge. Anant emphasises, ‘We all need to learn more about the extinction crisis. We must study what we can do, from afforestation to collaborating with the forest department, to save animals from vanishing. We must become more aware – our syllabuses should teach us about wildlife. We need deeper passion and compassion for animals. From 2008, Vantara’s only grown. I want people to understand what we do and why.’
A white lioness stares curiously at the visitors. She cocks her ivorine face around, like a puppy trying to figure out who you are. At the elephant enclosure, a baby jumbo playing with a large wooden toy gambols up. Farther down, amidst fragrant trees, an old elephant looks wisely at these humans, immersed in the tranquility that flowers when animals are at peace. ‘I want old animals to have love and care,’ Anant remarks. ‘We have 80-year-old elephants here who are given massages and hydrotherapy with cranes helping them. I worship Lord Ganesha and see him in all these beings.’ As Vantara’s jumbos play in Kathiawadi healing sheds, enjoy ragi laddus, khichdi and 24 kinds of organic grasses, grown by local farmers, forage among high bushels, yet avoid stepping on the little pansies planted in the ground, perhaps the heavens do smile at this ‘star of the forest’. ‘I want to heal the environment,’ says Anant as birds call out in the dusk. ‘Vantara is a start at rebuilding our bond with animals – they make us humane.’
