365Telugu.com Online News, Keonjhar, November11,2022: Until now you have seen only drunken monkeys. Now the elephants drank together. A group of elephants went to quench their thirst and drank from the water in a place in the forest. That too, not one, not two, but 24 elephants touched Natusara thinking it was fresh water. What did you do after drinking?
Villagers living near the Shilipada cashew forest in Odisha’s Keonjhar district found 24 drunken elephants sleeping near a place where mahua flowers were kept in large pots of water for fermentation.
The people of a village in Odisha went into the forest to brew the traditional country liquor ‘mahua’ (vippasara) only to find a herd of elephants fast asleep after gulping down the water fermented with intoxicating flowers. Villagers living near the Shilipada cashew forest in Keonjhar district saw a total of 24 drunken jumbos sleeping near a place where mahua flowers were kept in large pots of water for fermentation.
“We went into the forest at 6 am to prepare mahua, all the pots were broken and the fermented water was nowhere to be found. We found even the elephants were sleeping. They drank the fermented water and drank it,” said Naria Sethi, a villager.
There were nine elephants, six females and nine cubs. “The liquor was not processed. We tried to wake up the animals, but they did not wake up. We informed the forest officials,” he said. The forest department personnel reached the spot in the forest under the Patana forest range and beat the drums to wake up the elephants. After that, the elephants went inside the forest, said Ghasiram Patra, a forest officer.
The villagers found elephants sleeping intoxicated in different areas near the broken pots in the forest. Vippachettu (Mahua tree) also known as Madhuca longifolia. These flowers are fermented to make an extract called “mahua”. This Vippasara is traditionally prepared by tribals in different parts of India.