Brilliant, you've downloaded this jumbo edition of assignment. Elephants are fascinating,

beautiful, but really, very, very scary, especially the young male crop raiders determined

to get bigger and healthier before they mate. Once we rank an expert, describe these elephants

to us as sinbads. Single income, no baby, absolutely desperate. Anyway, here's assignment.

So, the focus of this week's assignment on the BBC World Service, I'm Linda Pressley,

reporting from Sri Lanka. Is that a noise she makes when she's angry or she's happy?

She's happy, actually.

Dr Akalankas, the vet on duty at Sri Lanka's wildlife department facility, near the ancient

temple city of Polonaroa. Laila's one of his charges. She's a noisy baby elephant already

as tall as he is and was brought here to recover after she ate what's known locally as a hukapata,

gum powder hidden inside a fruity treat.

The mandible and other part of the mouth got fractured, half of the tongue completely

amaged. That's why the salai were hanging out from the mouth.

Oh, because half the tongue is gone. More than half.

Death by hukapata is a cruel one. Unable to eat, the animal staves to death. There's a

profound contradiction here. Elephants are at the heart of Buddhist cultural and religious

life for many Sri Lankans, but they're also feared violent marauders, destroying crops

and competing with people for land, hence the hukapatas.

In this week's assignment, we'll be heading deep into rural wild elephant territory, and

later in the city of Colombo, we'll explore how ownership of captive elephants has become

entangled in politics. Laila's learned to eat with half a tongue, but this wasn't her

only injury. Also, there are some bullets. Bullet holes. Who shot her?

...