Elephant tails!

Elephants are the most majestic creatures! Brilliant and gentle, huge and swift! And here are some of my favourite elephant stories –

For work within Kerala I’d leave by cab or train early and come back in the evening. One of my earliest memories is leaving house in the dark, coming on the NH47 and seeing a light like on cycles at a strange height, making me wonder what the vehicle was. As we came closer and the sky slowly lightened, we saw this huge elephant walking slowly; It had a tail light! Well, how else would you identify an elephant on the highway in the dark? Unless it sang while walking! 😊

This was in Ludhiana and Sharmaji was driving me around that time. I’ll dedicate a separate post to Sharmaji later. We stopped at a particular place on the outskirts of the town where there were a few eateries and tea stalls and Sharmaji wanted us to wait. He said he’ll go and get me some tea but I was to sit there and keep looking at the old-fashioned fire hydrant like tap that had a wheel at the top to open it. What am I looking for, Sharmaji? I asked the breeze as Sharmaji had already reached a tea stall. He came back with cups of ginger tea within minutes and we stood there sipping tea. Now a couple of guys from the tea stall came over to chat with him and then the elephant walked by! Went to the tap, turned the wheel and drank water. Turned the wheel back to close the tap and walked away. Wow, I said, we didn’t even photograph this! One of the men laughed and said, ‘roj aata hai; phir kabhi photo le lena’.( He comes every day, take a photo another time!).

At Kaziranga we went on an elephant safari one Sunday morning. 

Moving among tall grasses, sighting baby rhinos and the smells and sounds of the jungle is quite intoxicating and one comes back on a bit of a high! We got off the elephant and I went and got him some bananas. I was handing them to the mahuat when he told me that I can give them to the elephant myself. I took one of the banans and held it in front of the elephant. He took it in his trunk and put it in his mouth and then another and another… By now, I was laughing and having got over my apprehension stroking his trunk. As I gave him the last banana and told him they were over, suddenly had him bending down and licking my outstretched hand. One wet, warm, sloppy lick! And I was so taken aback! Wonder why though? We know that the trunk is the nose and they have a mouth and a tongue but an elephant liking one’s hand like a dog would still came as a total surprise!

At the elephant orphanage in Punalur, Kollam  was Laxmi, a baby elephant that was strong and wilful! They would tie a rope around her leg. And she would twist and turn and pull away till she was free and run around the place. Then the elephant keepers would bring her back and tie her again. I guess she thought they were playing some game with her!

And I’ve come a long way about how I think of elephants. In Dombivli, where we grew up, my friend Rita* and I were standing at the vegetable vendor’s (Dada) in the chowk. An elephant came by and Dada gave me a banana to hand over to the elephant. As we came closer to the elephant he sneezed. Really loud! The two of us ran back home from there forgetting the vegetables, we had bought giggling with embarrassment! For years, the vegetable vendor would remind us of sneezy elephants and laugh with merriment!