Nature’s Masterpiece

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“Nature’s great masterpiece, an elephant – the only harmless great thing.”
(John Donne – English poet, 1572-1631)

This is a close-up of a couple of elephants met in a street of New Delhi.
It is still the shaadi season (wedding season) and a few mahouts (persons who drive an elephant) come to the capital in order to make some money at Baraat, the bridegroom’s wedding procession.

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The mahout

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“By a sweet tongue and kindness, you can drag an elephant with a hair”
(Persian Proverb)

A mahout is a person who drives and look after an elephant.

The word mahout comes from the Hindi words mahaut and mahavat, derivatives of the Sanskrit word mahamatra, which means ” having great measure.”A mahout starts very young, usually at about ten years old, when he is assigned an elephant early in its life and they would be attached to each other for the rest of the elephant’s life.

The training of a mahout is similar to a family business, passed down from one generation to the next.
The art of training an elephant is gradually becoming extinct as the job of a mahout is extremely difficult.

This portrait was shot in Udaipur (Rajasthan) where I saw a beautiful “haathi” (elephant in Hindi), which was not making any noise, it was huge and walking in a narrow street with many shops.
Everybody around was smiling, elephants always give happiness to people.
On this image the mahout stands under his haathi’s trump and tusk.

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Haathi Mere Saathi

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Haathi Mere Saathi (Elephants my Friends) is an Indian film and a favourite with children in the early 1970s.

I love elephants (Haathi in Hindi) since I am a child, they are my favorite animals, maybe because of Kipling’s “Jungle Book” or Disney’s cartoon “Dumbo”.

Nowadays Lord Ganesha stays around my neck in order to protect me.

This was shot in Jaipur’s Amber Fort in Rajasthan where elephants carry people from the village down the hill to the palace.
That morning there were so many of them that I never saw as many in my whole life, it was an unforgettable moment of happiness…

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Colonel Hathi’s March

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“Colonel Hathi’s March” is a song in the widely popular Walt Disney’s film The Jungle Book from 1967.
The song was sung by J. Pat O’Malley playing the part of “Colonel Hathi”.
The song was written by Disney staff songwriters, Robert and Richard Sherman.

It is written in the spirit of a light commentary on the pointlessness of constant military drilling.

This was shot in Jaipur’s Amber Fort in Rajasthan where elephants carry people from the village down the hill to the palace.

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