Angul, Sept 21: Watch, a wildered jumbo takes a sitz bath in a village pond at Gadharkhai village near Nalco in Odisha' Angul district this afternoon.
Though the incident wreaked panic among locals, crowds of onlookers enjoyed the rarest scene, how the pachyderm took joyful dips like holy saints, as in the Maha Kumbh Mela at Prayagraj.
The Gadharkhai, one of the worstly elephant-affected villages in Angul, is now emerging as a new destination for the elephants. Here, herds of jumbos or lone tuskers are found straying almost round the year, creating panic for men and animals.
According to Subhakanta Parida, a native of Gadharkhai village, a giant tusker entered the pond by the noon and immersed itself in the water for hours. As it noticed the presence of a crowd around the waterbody, the pachyderm tried to conceal itself in the deep water with frequent dips and sprinkling mud on its body.
Following hours-long relief, the tusker came out of the water, ate up green vegetation from the nearby area and left for its herd, Parida added.