Monday 21 February 2011

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

Naughty & Nice

Mayapura, India

Megabytes! That could be a play on words. I went for a brief walk accompanied by some devotees to the elephant section of the extraordinary spiritual retreat of Mayapura when somewhat unsupervised we edged our way toward the two gorgeous elephants . One of them, the older of the two females, Visnupriya, grabbed one of the boys' camera case, coiling her trunk around his torso in order to grab what could be a delicacy.

He tried to restrain but she was determined to grab the potential snack. She succeded and chewed and crunched. Doug was bold and tried to retrieve the useful commodity but Visnupriya wouldn't let up. She was biting the contents. She employed mega-bites and mixing saliva as the camera bag with contents of plastic memory cards inside was partially exposed from her mouth. Hmmmm! Maybe that's how elephants never forget. Perhaps their memories are sharp because they eat memory cards? Highly unlikely!

After a good chew she offered the contents of her mouth back to the donor, Gaura. Gaura wasn't exactly a happy camper. The cards were rendered useless. Each of his dozen or so cards had so many megabytes of RAM (Random Access Memory.) Gone forever!

We all were amazed by Visnupriya's voracious appetite. We were also actually quite worried she was going to swallow her curiosity. But no, she smartly rejected that meal.

Elephants are incredible. In parting from the elephants company the elephant jokes started to come out. One of the boys, Laksmipati asked, "Why are elephants so wrinkled?"

We couldn't guess. Answer: Have you ever tried ironing one?"

There were more jokes. Sharing jokes is a way of bonding. As we left Visnupriya and her younger friend Laksmipriya behind, we saw them bonding, rubbing each other, showing the kind of love that elephants do. They are Krishna's creatures, totally adorable.

4 KM

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