If I adopt an elephant…

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If I adopt an elephant,

I would name him Puttu

to remind him that no matter how

gigantic he gets, he’s still my baby.

I’d buy a sugarcane farm to feed him,

and I’d hire a mahouta to teach him manners.

I’d teach my children to ask him not

for rides, but instead to ask him

to pet them with his trunk.

I’d teach him to sit and trumpet

for bananas, and to roll

in the dirt in summers to beat the heat.

I’d hire a stonemason to make

a ginormous stone table

outside our house so he

can sit with us and eat

banana leaves while we eat

on banana leaves.

But we never feed him used leaves.

He is family after all.

I will teach my children to call him Puttu Anna,

because he’d be their elder,

and their children’s children will

call him Puttu Thaata.

I’ll teach him to help bathe the dogs,

because whatever they run from, they

won’t be able to run from

an elephant’s spray of water.

Subbalakshmi will need to teach Puttu

to be gentle, as gentle as she

is around smaller creatures,

and more so around the cats, because

they will perhaps fear him if he is loud.

Vibhishana, perhaps, will respect him,

or perhaps he will win him over as well,

Ganga will rest on his head,

loving him as she loves all, perhaps more,

And Yamuna, well, maybe she will trust him at least.

When I read outside,

which I will do every day,

I will teach him to sit next to

me, because I will read to him.

I will tell him the stories

of Gajendra and Ganesha,

and tell him how stupid

humans are for either

deifying or harassing animals

as noble as him. He is not

God, he is no monster.

I will tell him what he is:

Family.

When I die,

I want my grandchildren

to play videos and audio of me reading to

him so he can hear me and watch me

read even when I am gone.

I want my ashes mixed in a river

where he can bathe,

so he will know I am still

bathing him.

I want an elephant,

not so I can adopt him,

but so he can adopt me.

I want to find him a mate, and

I want to watch his calves frolic

in our sugarcane farm.

I want his children to call

my children their own,

so that the line between our

families is thinned. Perhaps one day,

he will name one of his children after

me, and one of my grandchildren can be

named after him.

Note

This is an updated version of a bit I’d once written and posted on Instagram. I wrote this before I had pets of my own, and I wanted them to be a part of it, hence the edit.