05 July,2009 10:13 AM IST | | Peyvand Khorsandi
Few things in life are as delightful as the sight of an elephant washing itself in the river.
Lakshmi, the resident elephant at Hampi's Virupaksha temple, which I visited last week, took to the waters of the Tungabhadra river with such abandon that it made me want to join in and scrub her behind the ears (a privilege reserved for the keeper who, it has to be said, has a plum job he gets to ride her and wash her).
The river is populated by big boulders that dwarf Lakshmi and each looks like an elephant itself, that may yet rise up. Lakshmi was swift to grate her cheeks on the surface of the rocks the whole of her impressive frame, in fact emitting at what must have been the height of joy, the trumpet sound so familiar from Tarzan films, with a burst of spray.
Lakshmi, however, did not see this warning as she basked in the second of her two daily baths in the dimming early evening sun it's probably there to warn tourists of the bathing elephant. Hampi is famous for its ancient temples but on this trip, joined by girlfriend Jane from London, it was Lakshmi that stole the show with her enchanting smiles and frolics in the water.
Watching her perform ablutions mimicking her master, who we only ever saw strike her once with her lathi I said to Jane: "She must be as intelligent as a dolphin and if that's the case he's as bright as Max" Max is her five-year-old boy. "You would not believe what Max is capably of thinking," she said. Back in his quarters at the temple, later, we watched as Lakshmi accepted bananas, from a jolly family visiting from nearby Hospet and in return for the ten rupee notes that she received u2014 and dutifully passed on to her keeper issued pats on the head as a "blessing". "I bet Max can't do that," I said. "He hasn't got a trunk!" said Jane.
I couldn't really argue with that and when she asked me to verify who had said that about dolphins I didn't know what to say. The fact is, they can jump through hoops but so can your average three-year-old given fins and a tail. "You don't know much about children," she said.
u00a0
Back at our guesthouse I read in the Deccan Herald that Cameron Diaz has said she most definitely does not want to have children.
Apparently, this is a very bold thing for a 37-year-old woman to admit to. Like Diaz, with less than three years before I hit forty or, as I fear, forty hits me, I cannot be sure that I don't want children. While I have no discernible Hollywood career to worry about or for that matter "body clock", I do like the freedoms that being child-less or "child free" allows.
One such freedom is to carry misconceptions about children, such as that their intelligence is on a par with that of dolphins. The Herald's front page carried news of a father who died from a heart attack at the tender age of 50, leaving behind him three children.
Even though I am 13 years younger than Michael Jackson, since hearing about his death, I have been careful to steer clear of prescription drugs and regularly check my heart rate to check I'm still alive while worrying whether I too may end up having a child and calling it Blanket.
Given my own economic circumstances as a freelance in a publishing recession and the theory that it was ultimately the King of Pop's debts that led to his demise, I have even thought of volunteering to fill his shoes at London's O2 arena I cannot "moonwalk" as well as him while he was alive but boy can I dance better than him now he's dead.
In all honesty, I am sad about Jackson's death, it has turned my head into a jukebox devoted to his greatest hits, just like I did as a teenager, mumbling sounds where I don't know the words "Cos this is diller, diller night, ayub-do-do-do-wop wop-do-wa-chub-dub-woopy-dub u2013 diller woo-hoo." He was a rather strange parent, dogged by accusations of child abuse, but thanks to the UK press bowing to the corporate muscle behind what were his forthcoming gigs, left the world with his popularity intact, tickets sold out.
Unlike Michael Jackson, I am unlikely to be a father and if anything might start my own zoo, with pride of place given to an elephant.
Iranian-born Peyvand Khorsandi is a journalist and stand-up comic based in London. He is in Goa, writing his first collection of short stories.
