Scientists believe that hippopotami roamed freely across parts of what is modern India till about 9,000 years ago, having originally come over from their homeland in Africa. Don’t expect them to be plodding about rivers and roads again, but a considerable large batch of hippos are slated to immigrate to India soon. Not from Africa, but from faraway South America, Colombia, to be precise. For those who like their wild life mixed with legends of wild life, the ‘bonus‘ is that some 60 hippos of a total 70 headed for a yet-to-be-named facility in India belonged to the late drug lord, ‘cocaine king’ Pablo Escobar who brought a few hippos from Africa in the late 1980s for his property in Antioquia in northwest Colombia. As is wont with rabbits, the hippos had multiplied since Escobar was ‘exterminated’ in 1993, which the local authorities allowed to roam around freely in the surroundings. Today, their number stands at 150, rather a lot for a small country like Colombia.
So the solution: send off almost half of them where they would welcome hippos. Ten are going to a Mexican sanctuary and 60 to our climes. The hippopotamus, from the Greek word for ‘river horse’ – correctly, dariyai ghora in Hindi – is very welcome to India, especially since the Colombian authorities are doing the shifting expenses (reportedly $3.5 million). Hip hip hippo!
