THE FAMOUS ANIMALS

An exceptionally long life or extraordinary courage or out-of-the-world charaterstics result in timeless fame. And When animals become part of some awesome chapter of history they too are remembered for a long time to come. Let us have a look at some animals who achieved timeless fame.

One such animal who walked into the pages of history was CHETAK the
legendary horse of Maharana Pratap,

the great rajput king of Rajputana India. Maharana Pratap refused to become a courtier of the moghul emperor Akbar and remained independent, fighting battles against the mighty Emperor all his life. The name of his beloved horse was CHETAK. This celebrated horse was with him in many bloody battles including the famous battle of Haldighati. The famous hindi poet Shyam Narain Pandey seems to be in his elements as says this about CHETAK in his famous long poem "Haldighati" :

" Run. beech. chaukari. bhar. bhar. ke. CHETAK. ban. gaya. nirala.tha . . / . . rana. pratap. ke. ghore. se. par. gaya. hawa. ko. pala. tha."

( chetak was galloping over the stage of war like a phantom-in-ecstasy . . /. . Even the winds and the elements of nature were in
absolute awe of this awesome horse of Rana Pratap).

We find a European version of Chetak in a horse by the name of MORENGO. He was the famous horse of
Napoleon Bonaparte and this horse was a battle veteran. Here is wikipedia extolling the horse called Marengo :

"Marengo (c. 1793–1831) was the famous war mount of Napoleon I of
France . Named after the Battle of Marengo, through which he carried
his rider safely, Marengo was imported to France from Egypt in 1799 as a 6-year-old. The grey Arabian was probably bred at the
famous El Naseri Stud. Although small (only 14.1 hands.) he was a reliable, steady, and courageous
mount. Marengo was wounded eight times in his career, and carried the
Emperor in the Battle of Austerlitz, Battle ofJena-Auerstedt , Battle of
Wagram , and Battle of
Waterloo . He also was
frequently used in the 80 mile gallops from Valladolid to Burgos, which he often completed in 5 hours."

Next we turn to the foothills of the beautiful himalayas in the uttarakhand region in
India.Here there is a place called Kaladhungi. It is some miles from the famous hill-station of Nainital, in the plains below. Kaladhungi is associated with the famous tiger hunter Jim Corbet. When we arrive at the place where he used to live, we see a well maintained enclosure having two graves. These are the graves of his two beloved dogs - ROBIN(he) & ROSINA(she).The owner of these hunting dogs was a legend called JIM CORBETT. The exploits
of ROBIN & ROSINA in his accounts of tiger-hunts endear them to the readers. If you have not read his book "The man eating leopard of
Rudraprayag"  you have missed masterpiece of tiger-hunt stories.
(google search Jim Corbett to know more about this legend of kumaon hills.). These celebrity dogs of the
celebrity hunter have a permanent place in the pages of history.

Then we have the grand old tortoise of India, a huge one. He was called ADWAITA ! He lived in Alipur zoological garden
Kolikata (Calcutta) and lived upto the age of 256 years !!

Wikipedia records thus about Adwaita the tortoise:

"Adwaita (c. 1750 – 23 March 2006) was a male Aldabra giant tortoise in
the Alipore Zoological Gardens of Kolkata (Calcutta), India . He was amongst the longest-living animals in the world.
Historical records show he was a pet of General Robert Clive of the British
East India Company, and had spent several years in
his sprawling estate before he was brought to the zoo. It is said that the
Aldabra tortoise was a gift to Clive from the British
seafarers who had captured the tortoise."

Next we pick up a bird - a parrot. Parrots are perhaps the only birds that talks like humans. They remember and repeat what is said in their
presence. we have a parrot in England who is master of dirty phrases. He is still alive, living a long life. His name is charlie the Macaw.

"Charlie (1899 - present) is a crotchety old blue macaw that may have already lived through three
centuries and is still going
strong. While it’s impossible to know
the exact date he was born, estimates put it around the very end
of the 19th century, and even if those estimates are off by a few decades,
he has still lasted a lot longer than the average 50 year life span of normal
macaws. His current owner claims he was a favorite pet of Winston
Churchill’s, who supposedly acquired Charlie in 1937 after the macaw had already
managed to outlive two previous owners. While the Churchill claim is
hotly debated, what is certain is that whoever did own Charlie during World
War II taught him to say some very dirty phrases, mostly about Hitler and the Nazis !"
(A macaw is a long tailed colourful parrot of the new world - the American continents.)

What we have next is an army officer - a
Sergeant . In 1918, his exploits were front page news in every major
newspaper in the United States. He was known as Sergeant Stubby. He was
wounded on several occasions during the conflict. And as time rolled on he became a celebrity.
He was a DOG - the only dog in history to be OFFICIALLY  given an army rank !!

And finally a most famous mule who never actually existed - "Fransis the
talking mule". He was the hero of a novel by David stern. He acted in several films too - a number of very funny Hollywood films were made in
the 1950s with the mule as the hero !!

For contacting this mule use the link below  :

http://horsefame.tripod.com/francis.html